Aaron Judge's revival is the Yankees' only hope to pull off a Red Sox-like miracle

Who will play the role of Kevin Millar on Tuesday afternoon? Jazz Chisholm Jr.? Chisholm has Millar’s talkativeness. Maybe it will be Gerrit Cole. Cole is a loud and fiery leader. He has been known to take a few bullets for a teammate or a manager.

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Swisher would definitely do it.

‘Don’t let us win tonight. This is a big game. They have to win because if we win, Cole comes back in Game 5 and then Rodon throws Game 6 and then you can take that cheating stuff and put it to bed. Don’t let the Yanks win. This. Game.”

Hitting the glove for emphasis.

Twenty years later, two things are needed for the Yankees to balance the scales of baseball justice. Twenty years after they became the first – and still only – baseball team to hold a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven against them, this would be a good time to channel those despised Red Sox and do something in themselves on Tuesday night. find. .

That’s when they will report trailing 3-0 in this 120th World Series. Their other old rivals, the Dodgers, happily put them in that hole on Monday by striking early courtesy of Freddie Freeman and closes late thanks to a strong pitching performance from Walker Buhler and an ensemble cast of relievers supporting him on the way to a 4-2 whitewash.

Now they have to do the worst thing possible: close their eyes, bite down hard, swallow even harder and… imitate the Red Sox.

And the fact is that it doesn’t have to be as painful or as deeply distasteful as saying what Millar said. More importantly, they need to act the way the Red Sox acted, and that is twofold. First, respect the promise of every manager who has ever seen a team fall into an 0-3 hole and try to have four one-game winning streaks and not one four-game winning streak.

The other is clearer.

Through three games of the 2004 ALCS, David Ortiz had made a nuisance of himself, collecting six hits, but five of them were singles and none of them left the yard. Half of that came in Game 3, a 19-8 bloodbath that sucked almost from the start. But in Games 4 through 7, it was Ortiz: .316/.409/.790. That’s an OPS of 1,199. That included home runs in Games 4, 5 and 7, and nine of the most vital RBIs ever collected.

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Those are the kind of four-game numbers that Aaron Judge specializes in. He has played roles like this dozens of times, roles that defy explanation and are breathtaking. Sometimes he comes right out of a batting slump to do it too.

The Yankees need that.

It’s no longer enough to say the Yankees can use that. It’s no longer viable to argue that the Yankees can somehow survive in this Series by carrying Judge instead of the other way around. It’s no longer enough to praise Judge for his “good at-bats,” like the one he took in the eighth inning, when he drew a six-pitch walk off LA righty Ryan Brasier, fighting back after a 1-and-2 -count .

No. Not good enough.

The Yankees need more. They need Judge to get hot – and red hot, if possible. Maybe it’s just a sign that the Yankees do indeed have a flawed roster and are so reliant on one player, just as their other superstar, Juan Soto, has done just fine.

You know what?

You can have that conversation when the season is over. You can wring your hands over it in a week – or a few days, if things don’t change soon. Aaron Boone thought about getting a few massages for his setup on a five and a half hour flight, from takeoff to fastening his seat belt, making sure he raised his tray table and making sure the seat back was upright and locked position.

He did one of them, bringing in Jose Trevino for struggling rookie catcher Austin Wells, going 4-for-41 with 18 strikeouts in the postseason. He thought about doing a few more, but was hesitant to share them. One that would have been completely defensible: swapping Judge and Soto in the order. If nothing else, just to get a new look.

“It’s the World Series, no,” he finally decided. “That’s our guy (judge), and there’s pressure in the Series no matter where you end up. He is our man and is confident he can get it done.”

Yankees fans treated him warmly, as expected, and certainly will on Tuesday night, even though his 0-for-3 mark lowered his World Series average to .083 (without home runs) and his postseason average to .140. His season is almost over and the Yankees are running out of time. Twenty years ago, in a similar situation, David Ortiz backed Kevin Millar’s vow with his bat.

The Yankees don’t need the pledge. Just the judge’s bat. STAT, as they always said on ‘ER’.