Sending Aaron Judge home in sixth inning a big reason for Yankees' loss to Red Sox

The Yankees finally had life.

Anthony Rizzo had homered with one out in the sixth for the Yankees’ first run to bring them within two of the Red Sox in the AL wild-card game at Fenway Park on Tuesday night.

Aaron Judge then beat out a chopper to short for a single.

Giancarlo Stanton, for the second time in the game, sent a shot off the Green Monster. It clanged off the top of the big fence in left-center and dropped to the grass as Judge steamed around second base.

Red Sox centerfielder Kike Hernandez collected the ball and fired a one-hop relay to shortstop Xander Bogaerts.

Surely, with the Yankees trailing, Judge would stop at third.

But third base coach Phil Nevin circled his arms to send Judge home. Bogaerts fired a perfect throw to catcher Kevin Plawecki. Judge, beaten by the throw, tried a headfirst slide, but Plawecki tagged him for the second out of the inning.

It wasn’t the only reason the Yankees lost, 6-2, and saw their season come to a bitter end. But having Judge thrown out at the plate instead of keeping him at third cost the Yankees a chance to have runners at first and third with one out and the Red Sox on their heels.

"Stanton smoked it," Judge said. "I think that’s a home run in 29 of 30 parks."

Stanton, who for the second time in the game thought he had a home run, didn’t run out of the box and ended up with his second single, although he moved to second on the throw home.

That brought up Joey Gallo as the potential tying run against reliever Ryan Brasier, who had replaced starter Nathan Eovaldi after Judge’s hit. Gallo popped out to third to end the inning. The next seven Yankees were retired over the final three innings before Stanton homered to right with one out in the ninth.

In the meantime, the Red Sox had expanded their lead from 3-1 to 6-1 against the Yankees' bullpen.

The Yankees had their shot, and they lost it when Plawecki’s glove touched Judge.

"I think the ball coming in looked like it was going to be kind of an in-between hop to the infielder," manager Aaron Boone said. "Bogaerts did a good job of creating a hop, catching it clean and obviously throwing it home and getting him, and that kind of squashed a potential rally there. I think what [Nevin] saw was what he thought was going to be kind of an in-between hop and really a tough chance."

After the game, Stanton was willing to entertain the notion that if the Yankees had won one more game during the regular season, the wild-card game would have been played in the Bronx and his drive would have been a tying home run.

"I was upset that that probably would have left most anywhere," Stanton said. "It would have changed the course of the game and — not being more of a [home run] for my benefit — but he wouldn’t have been out at home, we would have been tied and in a great spot. I was pretty upset about that."

By Anthony Rieber

anthony.rieber@newsday.comAnthonyRieber

Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.