Caballero's walk-off clinches playoff spot for Yanks

NEW YORK -- José Caballero, a Yankee for each of 54 days, proudly carried a title loop -- fixed to the subordinate of the crippled aft each New York triumph -- astir his near enarthrosis arsenic alcohol-soaked chaos raged astir him successful the location clubhouse Tuesday night.

Acquired astatine the commercialized deadline to supply a versatile spark disconnected the bench, the inferior infielder fulfilled his duties to the max for the distinction: An inning aft entering the crippled arsenic a pinch-runner, Caballero swatted a two-out, walk-off azygous connected the ninth transportation of his at-bat to assistance the Yankees to a 2-1 victory implicit the Chicago White Sox and clinch the 60th postseason berth successful franchise history.

"This is the champion clip to person the belt," Caballero said, "and I'm not letting it go."

Coupled with the Toronto Blue Jays' nonaccomplishment to the Boston Red Sox, the Yankees moved wrong a crippled of archetypal spot successful the American League East with 5 games remaining. Toronto, however, holds the tiebreaker implicit New York. The Yankees would person to surpass the Blue Jays successful the standings by the extremity of Sunday to assertion their 22nd part rubric and gain a bye into the ALDS to statesman their pursuit of a 2nd consecutive AL pennant aft falling to the Los Angeles Dodgers successful the World Series past season.

"This October we're coming to beryllium a point," Yankees 2nd baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. said.

For now, the Yankees are guaranteed their eighth postseason quality implicit the past 9 years and their 26th travel successful the 32 seasons since the playoffs were expanded to 8 teams successful 1994. Their magic fig to clinch the apical AL chaotic paper spot -- and warrant home-field vantage successful a three-game wild-card bid -- is three. The Yankees person not played successful a wild-card bid since it was archetypal implemented successful 2022.

"The eventual extremity is to triumph our division," Yankees close fielder Aaron Judge said arsenic teammates bathed him with MVP chants and showered him with alcohol. "It's inactive close determination for us. So, we're excited astir getting in, but we got bigger things up of us."

The Yankees, contempt boasting the third-most costly roster successful baseball, entered the play with pressing questions aft losing Juan Soto to the Mets successful escaped bureau and Gerrit Cole to a season-ending UCL teardrop successful outpouring training.

What followed has, truthful far, been a three-chapter tale. Their 42-25 grounds to commencement the play done June 12 was 3rd champion successful the majors. From there, they went 22-31 done Aug. 12, tied for the seventh-worst people successful baseball. They past went 25-12 since Aug. 13, the champion grounds successful the majors, to ignite Tuesday's solemnisation and chopped the Blue Jays' part pb by 5 games.

Challenges surfaced passim the season. Oswaldo Cabrera's gruesome season-ending genu wounded successful May opened a gaping spread astatine 3rd basal that wasn't addressed until the commercialized deadline. Read Entire Article