A year and ten days ago, the Yankees played their final game of the 2023 regular season.

They lost 5-2 in Kansas City to a 106-loss Royals team. Starter Michael King, now on the Padres, had eight hits and four runs in four innings. A young outfielder named Everson Pereira, who spent the entire 2024 season at Triple-A Scranton, whiffed through a bounced curveball for the final out. The Yankees and their $273 million payroll finished the season 82-80.

New York had been statistically eliminated a week earlier — emotionally they had been eliminated well before that — but the final day of the regular season still meant something. It was especially painful for the club’s captain, Aaron Judge, who had re-signed with the Yankees the previous winter for nine years and $360 million. In the first year of his tenure as captain, the Yankees delivered their worst regular season since 1992.

And so the hulking outfielder, who had another stellar season but was marred by injuries, lingered in the Kauffman Stadium dugout for a while while the rest of the Yankees headed to the locker room. It’s an image most often seen at the end of a playoff series: the downtrodden losers hanging over the railing, watching the winners celebrate in a masochistic ritual of supposed growth. But that afternoon in Kansas City, Judge was only looking at his own team’s failures. After a few moments, he stood up, rolled a baseball to a fan in the front row and trudged to the clubhouse.

That memory stuck in the captain’s mind. He did not forget that disappointing day.

“(In) 2023, our season ended here,” Judge told TNT sideline reporter Jon Morosi after clinching Thursday’s 3-1 win over New York in ALDS Game 4. “We didn’t get into the postseason. I remember a lot of these guys looking at the field.

“We came together and said this wouldn’t happen again.”

Judge went 1-for-2 with two walks on Thursday. His 115 mph double in the sixth inning, coming around to score the team’s third run, was the second-heaviest hit of his postseason career and his heaviest since 2018. New York scored the first two runs on RBI singles by Gleyber Torres and Giancarlo Stanton, further cementing his reputation as a playoff performer.

Judge, on the other hand, entered the October night with a paltry 1-of-11 line, earning him a mountain of unwarranted criticism. But on Thursday, he took a small step toward assuaging premature concerns about his postseason bona fides.

So did the Yankees.

New York arrived in Kansas City for Game 3 under the specter of arrest. Fans were concerned, forecasters were encouraging, and understandably so. The Yankees did not play sharp in any of their home games in this series. They pulled off a Game 1 win thanks to the superiority of their bullpen, but looked unconvincing in the process. The Royals silenced the Yankees’ bats in a Game 2 win. A series that on paper should have been some sort of mismatch had turned into a coin flip. The team with the best record in the American League was pushed to the brink by a club that committed the league’s worst offense in September.

Now, thanks to a pair of stellar pitching performances in Games 3 and 4, the Yankees have put those doubts to bed for now. The bullpen in particular was a godsend. Through their first 15 2/3 innings of work this postseason, the New York relievers haven’t allowed an earned run. Clay Holmes and Luke Weaver each threw a scoreless frame on Thursday.

Their performances supported what was a strong rebound start from top player Gerrit Cole. The always emotional pitcher got knocked around a bit in New York’s Game 1 victory, allowing three earned runs and seven hits in five innings of work. Many pitchers would have been satisfied, even excited, if they could have capped off a playoff start with that line. But not Cole, who shook his head in complacency as he walked back to the clubhouse after being pulled.

In Game 4, he was much sharper, allowing just one run in seven innings. A notable change in approach certainly helped, as Cole alluded to during his post-Game 1 media conference call.

“We look forward to making some adjustments next time,” he said.

He did adapt. In Game 1, Cole threw 11 sliders to Royals hitters. Nothing became an out. Four became hits, including Yuli Gurriel’s wall-slamming double that bounced Cole from the game. The slider continued to back up on Cole and caught way too much plate and way too many barrels.

So he and the Yankees met in Game 4 and canceled the field altogether. Cole didn’t throw a single slider on Thursday. Instead, he leaned heavily on his four-seam fastball, throwing it 55% of the time. Cole hadn’t thrown his heater this often since September 2023, a sign of both intent and adaptability from the Yankees ace.

“(The fastball) hit good spots all night,” he told YES Network during the post-game clubhouse party. “Thanks to the running support, we were able to stay on the attack.”

Cole’s final pitch, a 90-mph fastball to the relatively underpowered Kyle Isbel, provided the hairiest moment of the night. The previous batter, veteran outfielder Tommy Pham, had singled off Cole, his third of the evening. Isabel came to the plate with a chance to tie the game. And for a moment it seemed as if he had done just that.

The ball scorched off Isbel’s bat, toward deep right field. At Yankee Stadium, Isbel’s hit would have been a home run. But at Kauffman Stadium, home to the league’s largest outfield, it fell safely into Juan Soto’s hand. The threat – and essentially the game – was over.

Two innings later, after Holmes and Weaver had quietly sent the Royals on vacation, Judge caught the final out on a flyball to center. When he did, he pumped his fist and ran to the infield to celebrate.

All in all, it was a good night for Judge and for the Yankees, which, fittingly, they enjoyed with geysers of champagne in the City of Fountains.

The ALCS, New York’s 19th in franchise history, awaits.