Yankees Clinch No. 61. Judge Made Sure of It.

Six weeks ago, Aaron Judge was on the injured list with a fractured rib, no timetable, watching from home. On Monday night in Minneapolis, he stepped in against A.J. Minter in the eighth inning and put one into the second deck in left field — his first home run since May 24 — and by the time the Yankees finished off an 8-3 win over the Twins, New York had clinched a postseason berth. Their 61st in franchise history. More than any team in baseball has ever had.

The clinch was technically already secured before the Yankees' game even ended — the Blue Jays lost to the Tigers, 6-5, eliminating Toronto's path to catch New York for a wild card spot. But nobody in the Yankees clubhouse was thinking about a scoreboard watch. They were thinking about the six-run eighth inning that turned a tight game into a laugher, punctuated by Judge's three-run shot that pushed the lead to 7-2. Jose Caballero went 2-for-4 with a homer and two RBI. Austin Wells also went deep. Ben Rice drove in two. New York improved to 87-63, three and a half games behind the division-leading Rays and five up on Boston for the first American League wild card.

The Homer That Mattered Most

Judge went on the injured list May 31 with a rib stress fracture, the kind of injury that runs on its own clock — no amount of rehab urgency speeds up a bone healing. He returned to the lineup last week after more than three months away, and for his first several games back the power hadn't shown up yet. Monday night, against a hard-throwing lefty reliever, in the middle of the inning that clinched a playoff spot, it did. A 415-foot drive, the kind of swing that reminded everyone why the Yankees' ceiling changes the moment he's healthy.

It's also a swing that means something bigger than one night. Judge is chasing 400 career home runs — one of the most closely watched milestones in the sport this season — and every homer between now and October moves that number. Monday's was the first one since he came back, in the game that clinched the Yankees' spot in the very postseason that milestone chase is racing toward.

Number 61

The Yankees have been to the playoffs more times than any franchise in Major League Baseball, and Monday night added to that ledger — the third straight season New York has reached October under manager Aaron Boone. Twenty-seven championships sit in the franchise's history, but this postseason berth is its own accomplishment: a 162-game grind that ended, fittingly, with the team's best power hitter finding his swing again at the moment it mattered.

The Whole Game, Kept

A highlight package shows you Judge's swing. A scorecard shows you the whole night — Caballero's homer, Wells going deep, the six-run eighth that broke the game open, every out that came before it. Field & Ink builds any MLB game from the last 100 years as a hand-lettered scorecard, including the one that just clinched a playoff spot.

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