BREAKING: Yankees Crush Orioles with Home-Run Power to Claim Electric Victory, Yet Standings Stay Frozen as AL East Race Tightens and Playoff Stakes Surge in Dramatic Late-Season Showdown.nh1

The Yankees did their job. The Rays did not.

And so the Yankees will head into the penultimate day of the regular season still needing some help if they are actually going to come all the way back to leapfrog the Blue Jays for the AL East title and a bye into the ALDS.

For now, they continued to take care of their own business, with Giancarlo Stanton clobbering a pair of two-run homers and Aaron Judge adding another to fuel a sixth straight win, 8-4 over the Orioles on Friday night in The Bronx.

The win kept the Yankees (92-68) tied atop the division with the Blue Jays, who beat the Rays in Toronto. But the Blue Jays own the tiebreaker courtesy of their 8-5 record against the Yankees this season, meaning Aaron Boone’s club still has a game to make up to claim the AL East, making for more scoreboard watching ahead.

“I mean, [the scoreboard] is up there every fly ball that’s hit, so you’re peeking over,” Stanton said with a grin. “But the peek is always better when we’re ahead.”

The Blue Jays could clinch the division as early as Saturday with a win and a Yankees loss. The Red Sox, meanwhile, clinched their playoff ticket Friday night and continue to be the Yankees’ most likely opponent in a potential wild-card series.

“The main thing is we win,” said Will Warren, who finished a solid rookie season by giving up four runs across five-plus innings. “We talked about it before tonight, we take care of business and go get these three games, then we’ve done all we can do. Everything else is out of our control.”

But at least for one more night, the Yankees remained in the division race thanks to Stanton (five RBIs) and Judge, who homered in the same game for the 58th time, the eighth most all time by a pair of teammates.

If the Yankees can get this version of the Bash Brothers in October? Well, that might just change the equation.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Stanton said. “Understand the record is in our favor overall when that happens [51-7]. Anything to help us get a boost is good.”

Making this chapter of Stanton-Judge demolition even more impressive was the fact that it came against left-hander Trevor Rogers, who entered the night having allowed just three home runs in 106 ²/₃ innings for the Orioles (75-85) this season. Stanton and Judge matched that number across 2 ¹/₃ innings on Friday.

Rogers shut down the Yankees just a week ago in Baltimore, holding them to one hit across six shutout innings. That quickly changed Friday night, as Stanton drilled a two-run homer to right-center on an 0-2 count in the bottom of the first for a two-run lead.

“I think [we] probably benefited from seeing him last week a little bit,” Boone said. “The two big boys really leaned on a couple.”

But the Orioles briefly took the lead back in the top of the third against Warren. Their rally began with an infield single on a slow roller to shortstop by No. 9 hitter Coby Mayo. Warren followed by walking Jackson Holliday, then had an 0-2 count on Jordan Westburg before hanging a sweeper that turned into a three-run home run when it snuck into the first row of seats in left field.

Judge, continuing to finish strong in a down-to-the-wire AL MVP race with Cal Raleigh while all but wrapping up the batting title (now hitting .330), put the Yankees back on top 4-3 in the bottom of the third with a two-run shot, his 52nd of the season.

“To me, he’s the clear-cut MVP,” Boone said. “He’s playing like an all-time great.”

Rogers then walked Cody Bellinger (2-for-2, two walks) to bring up Stanton, who demolished a 451-foot blast over the visiting bullpen to make it a 6-3 game. The moonshot tied Stanton with Carl Yastrzemski for 40th place on the all-time home runs list with 452.

The Orioles got a run back in the sixth inning when Tyler O’Neill led off with a home run against Warren to pull within 6-4. Mark Leiter Jr. entered and loaded the bases with two outs on a fielding error by Paul Goldschmidt and a pair of walks. But lefty Tim Hill came in to clean up the mess and got Holliday to ground out to end the threat.

“Obviously, we have no control over anything, other than what we do between the lines,” Boone said. “So our guys are locked in, playing for a lot, focused. But with that said, I’m watching [the scoreboard] all the time.”