The New York Yankees are surging down the stretch ahead of the postseason, but Aaron Judge isn’t happy with the logistics of things should the red-hot team make a deep postseason run.
Major League Baseball confirmed this week that most of the postseason will be played at bubble sites in California and Texas, which has received mixed reviews.
However, wild-card rounds will be played at the home ballpark of the higher-seeded team before LDS and LCS series are played in the two bubbles. The World Series will then be played Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
Judge doubled down on previous comments by making it clear Thursday night that such a setup doesn’t do the Yankees, or any other playoff-bound team for that matter, any favors.
“I’m not a fan of it, not a fan of the bubble, not a fan of the whole setup. Like I said before, it doesn’t really reward a team for going out and winning. There’s really no home field advantage anymore,” Judge said, per the New York Daily News. “If you’re telling me whoever is in first place can win as many games they want, but they’re only going to get three games that those first three games, that little series at home, that’s it, then I am a not a fan of that.
“And to kind of be put into a bubble before the playoffs and during the whole thing, I felt we’ve kind of already been doing that this whole season and now we’re all kind of getting taken away from our families to go do this,” Judge continued. “I am not a fan of it. So we’ll see how it plays out. It’s not gonna change how we approach it, what we want to do and what we want to accomplish in the year, but… I’m not a fan.”
If the season ended Friday, the Yankees would face the Minnesota Twins in a best-of-three series at Target Field. The winner of the series would then embark for the West Coast to play the ALDS and potentially the ALCS at Petco Park in San Diego.
Regardless of the unprecedented circumstances Judge views as extremely unfavorable and unfortunate, the Yankees slugger feels good about the team’s postseason chances, especially given the utterly dominant run the team has been on of late, winning eight of 10.
“I feel we have the best team out there,” Judge said, per the New York Post. “We had a lot of key guys miss some time. We are getting back to full strength at the right time, right at the stretch. This is the best time to be hot.’’
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