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SEATTLE — The most pressing item on the Yankees’ calendar last October was an organizational deep dive.
This year, they can officially clear their schedules for playoff baseball.
There are bigger and better goals on their agenda, but the Yankees took care of the first order of business on Wednesday night by clinching a postseason berth with a 2-1, 10-inning win over the Mariners at T-Mobile Park.
After missing out on last year’s playoffs following a miserable 82-80 season, the Yankees (89-63) marked Wednesday’s accomplishment with a raucous champagne and beer celebration in the visiting clubhouse, all while keeping an eye on their next goal of wrapping up the AL East — which they now lead by a season-high five games over the Orioles with 10 to play.
“We definitely know the job’s not finished — we’re hunting this division — but getting an opportunity to punch our ticket back into the postseason after last year missing out, it means a lot,” Aaron Judge said while dripping with champagne. “We got a special group here. The boys are definitely excited, but they know the mission is ahead of them.”
With their ninth win in the last 12 games — secured by Anthony Rizzo’s RBI double in the top of the 10th inning and Ian Hamilton closing it out in the bottom of the frame — the Yankees trimmed their magic number to clinch the division to six games.
“It’s there to be taken now,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We got to keep the gas pedal on and hopefully keep racking up some wins. Go get the East — that’s our next goal.”
Coming off a brutal 2023 season — the franchise’s worst since 1992 — the Yankees pulled off a trade for Juan Soto in December to pair him with Judge as arguably the game’s best 1-2 punch.
Many of them then showed up to spring training in Tampa early, motivated by what they often described as an embarrassing season that was not immediately scrubbed from their minds.
“It stuck with us a long time, as it should,” Gerrit Cole said. “It does when it means a lot to you. I think it makes it more validating this year that we were able to come back and get in so soon. There’s a lot of hard work that went into it.”
The champagne celebration was temporarily delayed Wednesday after Clay Holmes gave up a game-tying home run to Justin Turner in the eighth inning.
But Rizzo, who had two of the Yankees’ three hits and drove in both of their runs on the night, led off the 10th by ripping a double to right field to score automatic runner Jasson Dominguez from second base.
Hamilton then closed it out in the bottom of the inning with some help from a bizarre double play.
Cal Raleigh had led off with a single to put runners on the corners before Hamilton got Randy Arozarena to strike out.
But as he did, Arozarena’s bat went flying down the third-base line, with Julio Rodriguez dancing out of the way to avoid it and being slow to get back to the bag.
That allowed Austin Wells a chance to throw down to third, where he picked off Rodriguez for the second out.
Hamilton struck out Turner to end it, with the Yankees rushing back to the clubhouse to get the party started.
“Missing the playoffs is not Yankee-like,” said Nestor Cortes, who continued a strong stretch by throwing six scoreless innings. “Celebrating in ’21, celebrating in ’22, this feeling is what it’s all about. A lot of people complain about ups and downs and maybe how bad we were during the summer. But we stuck together. We’re going to try to pull off a run here. Hopefully something special.”
In 2022, when the Yankees clinched a playoff spot, they opted for a more civilized champagne toast before popping bottles when they wrapped up the division.
This year, after a long road back to making sure they would be playing in the postseason, they went full party mode just for the playoff berth, which they hope is the first of five celebrations to come over the next six weeks.
“We believe in each other, that’s what makes me think we can go all the way because we believe in each other,” Soto said. “We don’t try to be the hero out there, we just try to do our job and try to win games for the team.”
