NEW YORK – Aaron Judge hit a two-run drive at Monument Park for his first home run of the postseason, and the New York Yankees defeated the Cleveland Guardians 6-3 on Tuesday night to take a 2-0 lead in the American League Championship Series .

Judge, who entered the playoffs with just one RBI, hit a sacrifice fly in a two-run second to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead. With New York leading 4–2 in the seventh, the presumptive AL MVP drove a fastball to Hunter Gaddis’ letters, 400 feet to center, for his 14th career postseason home run.

“It was just good to add two more runs there,” Judge told TBS after the game. “Against a strong team, they have a great bullpen, they were fighting and clawing the whole game. So to give ourselves a few more points there. Gleyber (Torres) did his thing getting back on base, like he has done all the series. It was good to add two.”

In a matchup of aces having nights off, Cleveland’s Tanner Bibee got just four outs in the shortest start of his professional career, and an erratic Gerrit Cole was chased after walking four in 4⅓ innings.

Winning pitcher Clay Holmes, Tim Hill and Tommy Kahnle combined for 3⅔ scoreless innings. Jose Ramirez hit a home run in the ninth inning off Luke Weaver, just the second earned run. New York’s bullpen has allowed more than 23⅓ innings in six postseason games.

“It was huge,” Judge said of the bullpen. “The last couple seasons we’ve come into the postseason trying to get our bullpen together. But these guys came in, they’re healthy and they’re feeling great. Some great performances from quite a few guys on the back end.”

After a day off, Game 3 is Thursday in Cleveland. The Yankees lead the ALCS for the first time since 2009 with a 2-0 win over the Los Angeles Angels.

Teams are 32-5 in the best-of-seven championship series when leading 2-0.

“You know, you just got to keep moving,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We need two more here, but we can’t get ahead of ourselves. We just talked about it, it’s game by game.”

Torres reached base with a lead for the fifth time in the playoffs and had three singles. Anthony Rizzo had two hits and is 3-for-7 in two games since returning from a pair of broken fingers that forced him to miss the division series.

The Yankees became the 30th team to win the first two games of a best-of-seven series without trailing. Of the previous 29, 13 won the series.

Rookie shortstop Brayan Rocchio and right fielder Will Brennan committed run-scoring errors for the Guardians.

Rocchio dropped Judge’s pop-up in the first, allowing Torres to score. After Cleveland closed to 3-2, Brennan bobbled the ball as he attempted a barehanded pickup of Rizzo’s sixth-inning double, which hit off the low wall along the right-field line. Anthony Volpe, who had been first, sprinted home.

Steven Kwan extended his Cleveland-record postseason hitting streak to 12 games.

Alex Verdugo had an RBI double into opposite field in the Yankees’ second of two runs, which looked off a shoulder of left field umpire Vic Carapazza and went down the line.

Cleveland closed to 3-2 in the fifth when Josh Naylor hit a sacrifice fly and, after Holmes replaced Cole with the bases loaded, Brennan grounded in a runscoring force out.

Cleveland went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 runners.

Cole escaped two-on, one-out trouble in the third and then a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the fourth when pinch hitter David Fry committed an error and Rocchio took a knuckle curve at the top of the strike zone for a call. third at bat in a nine-pitch at bat.

Holmes struck out Austin Hedges on a low sinker, leaving the bases loaded in the fifth.

This report uses information from ESPN Research and The Associated Press.