Aaron Judge, Yankees can benefit from time off before ALDS

And now, to the true business at hand.

The American League East champion Yankees concluded the 2022 regular season Wednesday afternoon with a 4-2 loss to the Rangers, finishing 99-63.

That earned them the No. 2 seed in the AL playoffs, which for the Yankees won’t start until Tuesday at Yankee Stadium in a best-of-five Division Series matchup against the winner of this weekend’s best-of-three Wild Card Series between the Rays and Guardians in Cleveland.

“Now it begins for real,” Aaron Boone said.  

The Yankees, without a World Series title — or World Series appearance — since 2009, will have five full days off before starting their quest to end that drought.

Much will be made of the long stretch between game No. 162 and the start of the Division Series, a Rorschach inkblot test of sorts where just about everyone will see what they want to see.

The reality is the long layoff and its impact — or lack of impact — on the Yankees cannot yet be determined. But there is one incontrovertible bottom line: Many more of their regulars can use the extra rest than not.

At the top of that list is Aaron Judge, who played 55 straight games during his pursuit of Roger Maris' AL home run record, finally getting a day off Wednesday after passing Maris with his AL record-setting 62nd homer in the first inning of the second game of Tuesday’s doubleheader. 

Though publicly Boone, and Judge for that matter, said the outfielder was holding up fine during the pursuit, there was plenty of behind-the-scenes concern that the outfielder might be getting mentally and physically worn down by the chase and all it entailed.

Boone was almost desperate to get Judge a day off by season’s end, but he first had to wait for the record-setter. It was no coincidence Judge, after passing Maris Tuesday night, came out of the game an inning later, then was completely off his feet a day later.  

Then there’s DJ LeMahieu, whose big right toe injury cost him most of the month of September and who was walking with a pronounced limp in the clubhouse after Wednesday’s game.

Players, other than those rehabbing injuries, were encouraged to take a full day off Thursday before starting to gear things up with workouts at the Stadium, which will include a slew of live BP sessions Friday through Monday.

“We’ll make the most of it,” Boone said of the time off.

Then it will be officially on to the pursuit that matters most to Judge and his teammates — copping franchise title No. 28.

“Everybody in this room’s excited,” Judge said. “Once we clinched the division in Toronto [we] kind of started looking ahead at what’s to come. It’s an exciting time of the year. This is what we’re looking forward to.”

Of the importance of completing his historic season with a championship, Judge said: “I think historical or not, you want to finish with that. The regular season, all it really is is just getting you prepared for the postseason. Now with the regular season out of the way, it’s time to go out there and have fun and play our game like we have all year.”

A game that produced a roller coaster of a regular season, which included plenty of outside panic at its lowest points— mostly during a 10-18 August — but one that produced the East crown, just the second since 2012.

“That’s what we hoped for in the regular season. We put ourselves in a good spot now,” Boone said. “So I guess it's first mission accomplished in that regard . . . it’s always a grind, it’s always hard, it’s always hard in this division, I think especially this year, and to be the team that was the best in our division, there’s some satisfaction in that. But our group, we want to win it all, and that’s what we’re focused on now.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.