Aaron Judge tied Joe DiMaggio for fourth place on the Yankees’ all-time home run list on Thursday, going deep twice while leading New York to a 9-3 win over the visiting Detroit Tigers in the finale of a three-game series between American League playoff contenders.
Giancarlo Stanton also homered and Jazz Chisholm Jr. had a two-run single for the Yankees (81-65), who were outscored 23-3 while losing the first two games of the series. Ben Rice, Jose Caballero, Austin Slater and Cody Bellinger each had a RBI hit.
New York remained three games behind the AL East-leading Toronto Blue Jays (84-62) and broke a tie with the idle Red Sox (81-66) for the first wild-card spot. The Yankees visit Boston for a three-game series starting on Friday.
Dillon Dingler had a homer and an RBI single for the Tigers (84-63), who lead the second-place Cleveland Guardians (75-71) by 8 1/2 games in the AL Central.
Judge went deep off opener Tyler Holton (5-5) in the first inning before tying DiMaggio by hitting his 361st homer in the third off Sawyer Gipson-Long.
Judge equaled DiMaggio in his 4,925th career plate appearance — 2,747 fewer plate appearances than the Hall of Famer DiMaggio collected from 1936 through 1951 in a career interrupted by a three-year military stint during World War II.
The milestone homer was the second of the week for Judge, who moved past Hall of Famer Yogi Berra into fifth place with his 359th homer in the series opener on Tuesday. Next up on the Yankees’ all-time list is Hall of Famer, Lou Gehrig, who finished with 493 homers.
The top two on New York’s homer list are Babe Ruth (659) and Mickey Mantle (536).
Yankees rookie Cam Schlittler (3-2) allowed one run on five hits and two walks while striking out seven over six innings. Ryan Yarbrough notched his first save after giving up two runs over the final three frames.
Holton allowed two runs on two hits and no walks while striking out two in one-plus inning. He exited after giving up a leadoff hit in the second to Chisholm, who scored on Rice’s double.
Gipson-Kong permitted seven runs in 2 1/3 innings.
