Yankees win AL East title with 10-1 victory over Orioles behind Judge, Stanton and Cole

NEW YORK (AP) — Aaron Judge, spritz from white and gold bottles of Luc Belaire Rare Luxe sparkling wine dripping down his 6-foot-7 frame, appreciated the moment.

“Nothing is ever guaranteed,” the New York Yankees captain said.

Judge hit his major league-leading 58th home run, going deep for the fifth straight game to help the Yankees romp over the Baltimore Orioles 10-1 on Thursday night and wrap up the AL East with three games to spare.

Quite different from 2023's sputtering descent to an 82-80 record that nearly became the pinstripes' first losing since 1992.

“Coming up short last year, it stings,” Judge said. “It hurts just like any other year that you don’t win a World Series, but that one hurt a little bit more. So we wanted to make a statement, come back here and put ourselves in a good position going into the postseason.”

After their 21st division title, including the first half of the 1981 split season, the Yankees (93-66) will open their 59th postseason at home Oct. 5 in a best-of-five Division Series against a winner of next week’s wild-card round.

Last year the Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time since 2016, when Judge made his big league debut in mid-August.

Judge, Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton and Gerrit Cole all know that Yankees are judged not by division titles but by World Series rings, like Yogi Berra's 10, Joe DiMaggio's nine and Derek Jeter's five.

They wore T-shirts that blared in large letters: “We own the East” with “American League” in smaller type in the middle. But if they are to win their 28th World Series title and first since 2009, three more celebrations are needed.

Manager Aaron Boone curtailed his clubhouse postgame remarks.

“I said some things and then they just wanted to start spraying,” he recalled.

After a season of spurts and slumps, New York clinched no worse than a wild-card spot in Sept. 18 and celebrated with a booze-filled clubhouse bash in Seattle. The Yankees were 50-22 in mid-June, went 30-38 until early September and have won 13 of their last 19.

“You can’t you can’t take this for granted at all,” Stanton said. “It’s expected, for sure, but times like last year, it didn’t happen. So you got to appreciate it. We’re here now. Enjoy it. You never know if you ever get a chance at it again.”

New York arrived home this week needing one win to take the AL East crown but lost consecutive games to second-place Baltimore (88-71), putting the celebration on hold. The Yankees ended the Orioles' one-year reign atop the division and left the Orioles with a wild-card berth,

“I don’t think we were the pick necessarily," Boone said. “Understandable. What we came off of last year, we had a lot to prove.”

Judge increased his RBIs total to 144, the most in the big leagues since Ryan Howard’s 146 in 2008. Stanton hit his 27th homer and had four RBIs, and Cole pitched 6 2/3 innings of two-hit ball to outduel Corbin Burnes (15-9) in a matchup of Cy Young Award winners.

Cole, the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner, didn’t make his first start of the season until June 19 because of nerve irritation and edema in his throwing elbow that had sidelined him since spring training. He finished 8-5 with a 3.41 ERA.

“You just feel alive. It’s the best feeling. The stakes are high. The juices are flowing,” Cole said. “Last year was a humbling experience. It reminds you the game’s really hard, and this season was hard for us, as well, even though we clinched here with a few games to go.”

After Cedric Mullins hit a game-ending groundout to shortstop Anthony Volpe, who threw to first baseman Anthony Rizzo, the Yankees came out of the dugout and formed a brief jumping huddle between the mound and second base. Much of the crowd of 42,022 stood for a lengthy ovation.

Trying to hold off AL Central champion Cleveland for home-field advantage throughout the American League playoffs, the Yankees have a one-game lead and hold the tiebreaker over the Guardians (92-67).

“I start banging that desk from day one with our guys: `It’s coming for us. We think we’re going to go do special things this year but along the way, even in a great season and what we hope is ends with the championship, we’re going to face moments of truth. We’re going to face adversity. We’re going to face tough times. We got to be prepared to handle that,'" Boone said. “We’ve had a lot of gut-check moments, a tough loss or a tough stretch, and these guys have really just kind of stayed the course.”

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Baltimore Orioles pitcher Cionel Pérez reacts after loading the bases during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)

New York Yankees' Gerrit Cole takes the ball during the first inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)

New York Yankees' Aaron Judge (99) and Austin Wells, front right, celebrate after scoring against the Baltimore Orioles during the sixth inning of a baseball game, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)

New York Yankees' Aaron Judge celebrates in the dugout after hitting a home run against the Baltimore Orioles during the seventh inning of a baseball game, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)

New York Yankees' Aaron Judge, center, celebrates with Giancarlo Stanton, left, after hitting a home run against the Baltimore Orioles during the seventh inning of a baseball game, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Ahn Sung-ki, one of South Korean cinema’s biggest stars whose prolific 60-year career and positive, gentle public image earned him the nickname “The Nation’s Actor,” died Monday. He was 74.

Ahn, who had suffered blood cancer for years, was pronounced dead at Seoul's Soonchunhyang University Hospital, his agency, the Artist Company, and hospital officials said.

“We feel deep sorrow at the sudden, sad news, pray for the eternal rest of the deceased and offer our heartfelt condolences to his bereaved family members," the Artist Company said in a statement.

President Lee Jae Myung issued a condolence message saying Ahn provided many people with comfort, joy and time for reflection. “I already miss his warm smile and gentle voice,” Lee wrote on Facebook.

Born to a filmmaker in the southeastern city of Daegu in 1952, Ahn made his debut as a child actor in the movie “The Twilight Train” in 1957. He subsequently appeared in about 70 movies as a child actor before he left the film industry to live an ordinary life.

In 1970, Ahn entered Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies as a Vietnamese major. Ahn said he graduated with top honors but failed to land jobs at big companies, who likely saw his Vietnamese major largely useless after a communist victory in the Vietnam War in 1975.

Ahn returned to the film industry in 1977 believing he could still excel in acting. In 1980, he rose to fame for his lead role in Lee Jang-ho’s “Good, Windy Days,” a hit coming-of-age movie about the struggle of working-class men from rural areas during the country’s rapid rise. Ahn won the best new actor award in the prestigious Grand Bell Awards, the Korean version of the Academy Awards.

He later starred in a series of highly successful and critically acclaimed movies, sweeping best actor awards and becoming arguably the country’s most popular actor in much of the 1980-90s.

Some of his memorable roles included a Buddhist monk in 1981’s “Mandara,” a beggar in 1984’s “Whale Hunting,” a Vietnam War veteran-turned-novelist in 1992’s “White Badge,” a corrupt police officer in 1993’s “Two Cops,” a murderer in 1999’s “No Where To Hide,” a special forces trainer in 2003’s “Silmido” and a devoted celebrity manager in 2006’s “Radio Star.”

Ahn had collected dozens of trophies in major movie awards in South Korea, including winning the Grand Bell Awards for best actor five times, an achievement no other South Korean actors have matched yet.

Ahn built up an image as a humble, trustworthy and family-oriented celebrity who avoided major scandals and maintained a quiet, stable personal life. Past public surveys chose Ahn as South Korea’s most beloved actor and deserving of the nickname “The Nation’s Actor.”

Ahn said he earlier felt confined with his “The Nation's Actor” labeling but eventually thought that led him down the right path. In recent years, local media has given other stars similar honorable nicknames, but Ahn was apparently the first South Korean actor who was dubbed “The Nation's Actor.”

“I felt I should do something that could match that title. But I think that has eventually guided me on a good direction,” Ahn said in an interview with Yonhap news agency in 2023.

In media interviews, Ahn couldn’t choose what his favorite movie was, but said that his role as a dedicated, hardworking manger for a washed-up rock singer played by Park Jung-hoon resembled himself in real life the most.

Ahn was also known for his reluctance to do love scenes. He said said he was too shy to act romantic scenes and sometimes asked directors to skip steamy scenes if they were only meant to add spice to movies.

“I don’t do well on acting like looking at someone who I don’t love with loving eyes and kissing really romantically. I feel shy and can’t express such emotions well,” Ahn said in an interview with the Shindonga magazine in 2007. “Simply, I’m clumsy on that. So I couldn’t star in such movies a lot. But ultimately, that was a right choice for me.”

Ahn is survived by his wife and their two sons. A mourning station at a Seoul hospital was to run until Friday.

FILE - South Korean actor Ahn Sung-ki smiles for a photo on the red carpet at the 56th Daejong Film Awards ceremony in Seoul, South Korea, June 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

FILE - South Korean actor Ahn Sung-ki attends an event as part of the 11th Pusan International Film Festival in Busan, South Korea, Oct. 13, 2006. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)