Judge, Yanks hope for full House tonight

BUFFALO — Aaron Judge was tired of hearing about it.

The Yankees’ slugger heard enough about the teams’ slow start and that it in a long season things would eventually click into gear. There was some real talk and this road trip was about doing something about it.

“Enough is enough. We’re better than this. We know we’re better than this. We gotta raise our standard, fellas,” Judge said Thursday night before the Yankees faced the Blue Jays in the series finale at Sahlen Field. “I think once we kind of talked to each other and just kind of had some honest conversations, I think everybody kind of honed it in a little bit.

“Everyone might have been sitting there like ‘Hey, it’ll eventually get there, eventually we’ll get there.’ Well, eventually’s gotta happen right now,” Judge said. “We know that as a team and I know it’s a long season. We’re still not even halfway yet, but guys are just being accountable and I think we’re starting to see that.”

The Yankees went into Thursday night’s game having already taken the series from the Blue Jays and leapfrogged them in the American League East standings. They had a chance to head back to Yankee Stadium with a winning record on a road trip.

And Judge would very much like to take some momentum from this trip back to the Stadium, which will be without COVID-19 restrictions for the first time since 2019.

“I hope it is sold out. I think Yankee fans and everyone’s gonna be waiting for this moment. I think us as players were and I was,” Judge said. “We want the fans to keep piling in and we get larger crowds. I think we’re starting to heat up as well so we could have Yankee Stadium that was sold out with a crowd to help us out.”

It would be a welcome sight for a team that hit some real lows on this trip.

They were swept by the Phillies after having their closer, Aroldis Chapman, blow a three-run lead in the final game of a three-game series in Minnesota. They came into the Blue Jays’ temporary home here — because of Canada’s strict COVID-19 travel restrictions — in fourth place behind the Blue Jays in the division and one game above .500. And their GM had to come to Buffalo and answer questions about his roster construction and the security of manager Aaron Boone and his coaches’ jobs.

That was something Judge really didn’t like.

He pointed out that Boone got heated and animated when talking to the team on this road trip and it “really perked the ears up.”