Aaron Judge will have to endure his growing October legacy of diminishing impact. Fifty-six games have great significance in the history of the Yankees and baseball around Joe DiMaggio.

But what it represented heading into Tuesday night’s World Series Game 4 was the number of games Judge has now played in the postseason. Judge’s most ardent clubhouse defenders invoke N and N — story and noise — to try to suggest that it is outside purveyors of negativity creating his tainted postseason image.

However, the Yankees can’t have it both ways and talk about how Giancarlo Stanton makes magic this time of year without acknowledging Judge’s descent into tragic postseason results. After all, this is no longer an insignificant sample size. In 56 postseason games, Hideki Matsui ranks 11th in Yankee history.

However, Matsui was among the best October players in franchise history. Of the 51 Yankees with at least 100 postseason plate appearances, his .312 average was seventh-worst, while Judge’s .196 was seventh-worst. Matsui won the World Series MVP the last time the Yankees were in the World Series, in 2009. Judge was on pace to be the goat of this fall classic, going 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts as the Dodgers won three times hit. -games-to-nothing.

The Yankees had played twelve games this postseason, all decided by three runs or less. They survived with a uniquely big moment from Judge in the first two rounds – a two-run home run in the eighth inning off Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase in ALCS Game 3. Incidentally, that was one of two games the Yankees lost. in the play-offs.

The Yankees could live without much of Judge and still have the upper hand against the little brothers of the AL Central. Not against the Dodgers. If Judge had hit, the Yankees could have, and conceivably, won each of the first three games instead of falling into their near-impossible hole.

He is the team’s biggest star. The highest paid in franchise history. So he has the greatest weight. It’s a big burden for what is no longer a small sample size. Judge simply hasn’t joined a triumvirate of impact with Stanton and Juan Soto, a duo that went 7-for-23 (.304) with two home runs and four RBIs during World Series Game 3, compared to everyone else who went 12-for -79 with one homer and three RBIs.

It highlights that the long lineup the Yankees thought they had built never really materialized and deteriorated at the worst time: Their Nos. 7-9 hitters went 4-for-34 (.118) with 12 strikeouts.

What’s underscored here is that the Dodgers are winning both the superstar portion of this schedule, with Freddie Freeman in particular all but sealing the World Series MVP title after the first inning on Monday. But also winning the chorus part. And there should be no surprise here.

During the regular season, the Dodgers had seven players record at least 250 plate appearances with an OPS-plus of 110 or higher, which tied for the MLB lead. The Yankees had three (you guessed it, Judge, Soto and Stanton), which included being tied with the Pirates.

After years of being too right and thus exploited in the playoffs, the Yanks added three bats this year: Austin Wells made the team from the start and eventually became the starting catcher, Alex Verdugo in a trade outside the season and Jazz Chisholm in a deadline deal. Sometimes it worked, especially when Chisholm came on shortly after the trade and cleared Wells early in the second half.

But in the postseason, Verdugo hit .195, Chisholm .170 and Wells parlayed a horrific September-October at .093.

Conversely, concerned about their vulnerability to lefties, the Dodgers signed Teoscar Hernandez and Enrique Hernandez in the offseason and traded for switch-hitter Tommy Edman (who hits best from the right side) at the deadline. Enrique Hernandez would have signed with the Yankees, but preferred the fame of the Dodgers. The Yanks tried to acquire Edman at the deadline even after acquiring Chisholm, and the White Sox were more fixated on a three-way deal in which the Dodgers landed not only Edman but another Yankee target, reliever Michael Kopech.

Edman has an .896 OPS this postseason, won the NLCS MVP and is the kind of healthy, boisterous player the Yankees are missing. Enrique Hernandez has an .850 OPS and Teoscar Hernandez has a .743 OPS. The trio went 11-for-33 (.333) in the World Series.

So yes, Judge is the face of the Yankees’ slide into the winter. But he’s not alone against a Dodger opponent whose entire lineup has moved a lot closer to All Rise.