How Yankees made big Aaron Judge decision that led to record-tying home run

TORONTO — Yankees manager Aaron Boone approached with his best player for a quick meeting in the midst of Tuesday night’s champagne spraying, beer-pouring AL East title celebration.

“What do you think about tomorrow,” Boone asked.

“I want to play,” Aaron Judge responded. “Let’s go!”

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That’s all it took for Boone to pass on giving Judge a first game off since Aug. 3 even though several other Yankees regulars were out of the lineup, the likes of Anthony Rizzo, Giancarlo Stanton, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Jose Trevino. The small compromise was putting Judge in the DH spot rather than right or center field.

Good decision.

Judge homered in the seventh inning of Wednesday night’s 8-3 win to tie Roger Maris’ American League record.

“I know we clinched the division, but there’s still a lot of important games out there that we’ve got to play and I want to be in them,” Judge said.

It’s important to note that Judge was in the lineup for the 48th time in a row because he’s been saying he’s been holding up very well physically and, of course he was still one homer shy of Maris eight days after hitting No. 60.

“Look, we all want to get (the record),” Boone said “We don’t want to put any undue noise around it. There’s plenty of that from the outside and all the eyeballs on it now. The biggest thing I’m monitoring him with is how he’s doing physically, and that’s the one thing that he’s been in a really good spot here for much of the year, especially in the second half.”

Boone was asked if Judge likely would have sat out Wednesday’s game if he was sitting on 50 homers instead of 60.

“Maybe,” he answered. “That’s awful hypothetical though. It’s hard to know where we are and he’s got 60. He’s one of the guys I got was pretty immediate after (the clinching win) and I wanted him them in there. It’s a good day to use him at DH.”

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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com.