As Alex Verdugo spent most of the summer being one of the worst qualified hitters in the majors, Aaron Boone continued to stand by his left fielder.
And even after Jasson Dominguez threatened to take Verdugo’s job in September, the Yankees couldn’t quite quit him.
At least in the first game of October, that faith was rewarded.
After Boone landed on Verdugo as his starting left fielder, the veteran delivered two key defensive plays and reached base three times, including the go-ahead single in the seventh inning to lift the Yankees to a 6-5 win over the Royals in Game 1 of the ALDS on Saturday night in The Bronx.
Even without Gerrit Cole (five innings, four runs) being dominant or Aaron Judge (0-for-4, walk) coming through in big spots, the Yankees did enough to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five series in front of a raucous sellout crowd of 48,790.
A back-and-forth game took its final swing in the seventh inning, when Verdugo stepped to the plate with a man on second base, two outs and reliever Michael Lorenzen on the mound. Verdugo got a cutter in the zone and laced it the other way to left field, allowing Jazz Chisholm Jr. to race home from second to break a 5-5 tie.
As Verdugo jogged into second base on the throw home, he did so with his hands raised as if the weight of the last few months had been lifted off his shoulders. Boone had said before the game that Verdugo’s steady defense was a “huge factor” in starting, but also thought he still had a “good run of offense in him,” which paid immediate dividends.
Luke Weaver later recorded the four-out save that came on a night when Clay Holmes was the unsung hero, getting five big outs without allowing a run. The Royals had answered in the next half inning after each of the first two frames the Yankees scored, but Holmes kept them scoreless in the top of the seventh after Austin Wells’ RBI single had tied the game in the bottom of the sixth, scoring Verdugo from second.
Earlier in the game, Verdugo had made a sliding catch along the left-field foul line to get Cole out of a jam and save at least one run, keeping the Royals lead at 3-2 in the fourth inning.
Then in the sixth, Verdugo made a strong play on Yuli Gurriel’s bullet off the wall to hold him to a single, though the Royals ended up scoring a pair of unearned runs to take a 5-4 lead after Anthony Volpe’s throwing error.
The Yankees did not make it easy on themselves in their playoff opener, wasting plenty of early scoring chances and going 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position. But thanks in part to Verdugo, they entered Sunday’s off-day with the series lead.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the Yankees in the postseason:
- Sherman: Yankees biggest stars have maligned teammates to thank for this victory
- Gerrit Cole didn’t have his best stuff in rocky Game 1 start
- Bobby Witt, Aaron Boone enraged during contentious ninth-inning at-bat
After finishing his abbreviated regular season in dominant fashion, Cole was not his sharpest version on Saturday. He pitched into the sixth inning but gave up three earned runs on seven hits and two walks while striking out four — with only six swings-and-misses all night. Much of the contact against him was loud.
The Yankees had a prime opportunity to take an early lead in the bottom of the first against Michael Wacha — runners on second and third with no outs — but squandered it. Judge, who entered the night 1-for-18 in his career against Wacha, could not deliver an early moment, striking out on a full count.
Austin Wells came up next and, with the infield in, hit a chopper to first base. Gleyber Torres was running on contact, but Gurriel picked the ball at first and fired home for the easy out.
Giancarlo Stanton — whose lack of speed on the bases cost the Yankees a pair of runs later in the night — then struck out to end the threat.
In his first playoff game as a Yankee, Juan Soto went 3-for-5 and threw out Salvador Perez at the plate before the Royals took a 1-0 lead in the second inning.
Torres and MJ Melendez exchanged two-run homers to the short porch in the third and fourth innings before the Yankees went back up 4-3 in the fifth on a pair of bases-loaded walks by Wells and Volpe.