Aaron Judge, Bobby Witt Jr. need to step up in playoffs

By now, even people in outer space know that the two most valuable players in the American League this season were Aaron Judge and Bobby Witt Jr., each of them having a season for the ages even if Judge fell short of hitting 60 homers for the second time in his career.

Judge still hit 58, with 144 RBIs, a .322 batting average, 122 runs scored while slugging .701 and ending up with an OPS of 1.159 — even higher than it was two years ago when he hit 62 homers in ’22.

Then there was Witt, a shortstop who didn’t turn 24 until June, becoming the first player in history with 200 hits, 100 runs, 40 doubles, 30 homers, 30 stolen bases and 10 triples, a statistical line that does everything except turn the lights on at Kauffman Stadium, where the Yankees-Royals series will arrive on Wednesday night at one-game all.

But all that was the regular season. Big baseball history. But still history now.

The first two games in AL Division Series have been vastly different for both Judge and Witt, now that the series is a best two-of-three with the next two games in Kansas City. Witt is 0-for-10 in Games 1 and 2, with four strikeouts and no RBIs. Judge has just one infield hit against the Royals — his last at-bat of Game 2 — with one run scored, no RBIs and four strikeouts himself.

The good news, of course, for both of them, is that there are at least two games left in this series and three if it goes the distance. And if there is one thing we have seen across just the first week of postseason baseball is how everything still changes — sometimes in lights, with one swing of the bat, and sometimes an unlikely swing of the bat at that. We saw it at Progressive Field on Monday afternoon, when Kerry Carpenter took Emmanuel Clase, pretty much the best closer in the world this season, deep over the right-field wall for a home run that turned a 0-0 game into a 3-0 victory for the Tigers as they evened their series against the Guardians.

Pete Alonso hadn’t been doing very much lately for the Mets until everything changed for him last Thursday night in Milwaukee, when he was the one who hit the three-run homer off another star closer, Devin Williams of the Brewers, and saved his team’s season. Maybe Judge or Witt — or both of them — can turn things around for themselves at Kauffman on Wednesday night, when either the Royals or Yankees will force their opponent to play for its season in Game 4.

After the Royals won Game 2 at Yankee Stadium, 4-2, Judge was asked how he’s feeling at the plate. This was his answer:

“If I’m not hitting 1.000, I’m not feeling good. Just gotta keep getting on base for the guys behind me. If they get on, I gotta drive ‘em in.”

Judge started slowly in the spring of ’24 before he began to roll — and roll through pitchers — the way he had back in ’22. There was another slump near the end of the season, but then he got home run hot again and looked as if he might make it back to 60, do something that even Babe Ruth never did, which means hit 60 homers in a season twice. His October track record has been more of a mixed bag, and he enters Game 3 with a career postseason line of .208/.311/.449 line, with 13 homers in 207 plate appearances.

And as much as the Yankees need for All Rise Judge to rise up, starting in Game 3, the Royals need Witt to do that even more, even though they got out of New York with the split that they needed.

“Even when you’re not doing it individually,” Witt said after Game 2, “the team picks you up.”

Then he talked about the series returning to Kansas City for the Royals and said, “We need to get hot at the right time.”

It is so very much the right time for him to get hot, after the chances he’s had across the first two games to get the kind of big hits that Salvador Perez (rousing home run to left off Carlos Rodón) and Tommy Pham, Garrett Hampson and Maikel Garcia got when the Royals were scoring all their runs in the fourth inning of Game 2. In a series in which Witt has gone hitless so far, Garcia himself got four hits on Monday.

If anyone should benefit from a return to Kansas City, it’s Witt. He hit an otherworldly .382/.441/.676 at home this year, as compared to .284/.340/.505 on the road.

Brand-new series, starting tomorrow night — the chances for Judge and Witt to light up a playoff game the way they lit up the season. The two biggest stars of the American League season are looking for one of those October swings. One of those nights.