Yankees' Aaron Judge's big Game 3 blast still has teammates in awe

A day later, the thrill of Aaron Judge’s moment still reverberated.

“That was a cool one because no one really knew . . . you knew it was far enough to go out, but you didn’t know if it would wrap the pole or not,” Giancarlo Stanton said Wednesday afternoon of Judge’s tying three-run homer Tuesday night in the Yankees’ season-saving 9-6 victory over the Blue Jays in Game 3 of the American League Division Series. “That’s always a cool moment. You’re bending with the ball a little bit until a big eruption [from the crowd] seeing it hit the pole. It was cool. It was an awesome moment and huge for everything.”

Huge is an understatement.

The Yankees, trailing two-games-to-none in the best-of-five series, found themselves behind 6-1 going into the bottom of the third inning, a palpable feeling of gloom and an impending long winter hovering over the Stadium.

But after the Yankees took advantage of the first of two big errors by the Blue Jays and scored two runs in the third, the second of those miscues opened the door for the signature Judge postseason hit largely missing from what already is a Hall-of-Fame resume.

Austin Wells reached second with one out in the fourth after Blue Jays third baseman Addison Barger dropped a pop-up along the leftfield line. Trent Grisham walked and Blue Jays manager John Schneider called on flamethrowing righthander Louis Varland to face Judge.

Before Judge came to the plate, Stanton, whom Varland struck out swinging at a 101-mph fastball to leave the bases loaded in the sixth inning of Game 1, took a few seconds to share a scouting report with his fellow slugger and close friend.

“Hit a three-run homer,” Stanton said with a laugh of what he shared with Judge.

Said Judge: “Big G saw him in Toronto. I asked him. I hadn’t seen Louis since he was with the Twins and was a starter. I wanted a brush up. I’ve seen all the videos, seen all the appearances, but it’s a difference when you step in the box and see him live.

“So I was talking to him about what certain pitches were like, what it felt like. Any info you can get like that kind of helps you sharpen your game plan a little bit and gets you locked in a little bit better.”

After falling behind 0-and-2, Judge turned on a 100-mph fastball that was well inside and sent a moonshot to left that hugged the leftfield line. The baseball clanked off the foul pole for a tying homer — which felt like more than that — sending the crowd and Yankees’ dugout into the kind of celebration typically reserved for a walk-off hit. Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s go-ahead homer an inning later seemed more an inevitability than anything else.

“The game changed. The whole series changed right there,” Chisholm said of Judge’s homer.

Judge, a two-time AL MVP who may well win a third after hitting .331 with 53 homers, 114 RBIs and a 1.144 OPS, electrified his dugout with the fourth-inning blast, which was not unexpected. Any achievement by the Yankees’ captain sends a jolt through his dugout, but the circumstance, and the pitch he hit, doubled that excitement.

Because it shouldn’t have been possible for Judge to blast the pitch Varland threw — 100-mph and 1.2 feet inside from the center of home plate, according to Sarah Langs of MLB.com.

Cody Bellinger, in the on-deck circle, called the swing impossible “for most.”

“He hit it so true somehow,” Bellinger said. “Very impressive swing.”

On a pitch that wasn’t close to being a bad one.

“He made a really good pitch look really bad,” Varland said.

Said Schneider: “Give him credit, man. That was a ridiculous swing.”

As Judge came down the stretch of a torrid September, Yankees manager Aaron Boone predicted the reigning AL MVP would have a “crazy” October, the kind of breakout postseason missing in his career.

So far Boone has proven prophetic as Judge entered Wednesday night 11-for-22 with one homer and a 1.304 OPS in six postseason games.

“Everyday I feel like he’s having really good at-bats, very much in control up there,” Boone said. “I think it kind of lines up with how he finished in September. Really finished strong in the month of September and I feel like he’s carried those at-bats here into the postseason.”

With one at-bat in particular, he extended the Yankees’ season at least one more game, and perhaps longer than that.

“Exactly what we needed, the reason I’m here right now, the reason why we have another game tonight,” Stanton said Wednesday. “Yeah, he stepped up when we needed him most, and he’ll be right there again today.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.