MINNEAPOLIS — The rain fell steady and the temperature dropped at Target Field, and for seven innings the New York Yankees looked nothing like a team about to celebrate anything. They had two hits. They trailed. Their season-long headliner had spent a week searching for the swing that once carried them.
Then the eighth inning turned, and the story of the night belonged to someone few outside the clubhouse expected.
Jose Caballero had already put the Yankees on the board once. He would do far more before the champagne started flying, and the manner in which he did it said something about what this roster believes it has become heading into the postseason.
The utility infielder scored, singled home the tying run, stole a base and helped flip a one-run deficit into a rout, all inside a half-inning that felt like a preview of the baseball the Yankees think they can play in October.
New York erupted for six runs in the top of the eighth to beat the Minnesota Twins 8-3 on Monday night, clinching a playoff berth and turning a quiet, grinding game into a statement. The win, the Yankees’ 35th comeback victory of the season, sends them back to the postseason for the ninth time in 10 years.
Aaron Judge supplied the exclamation point with a 415-foot, three-run homer to the third deck in left field, his first long ball since May 24 and his first in six games since returning from a fractured rib. But the swing that ended the game came after Caballero and a group of role players had already done the quiet work of prying it open.
A half-inning that flipped everything
For most of the night, this looked like the kind of low-scoring, tension-filled game the Yankees played all summer without their captain. Caballero cleared the left-field wall with a two-out solo home run in the third inning for the game’s first run. After that, the offense went silent.
Will Warren carried the Yankees into the sixth before his defense let him down. Two miscues behind him helped the Twins score twice and take a 2-1 lead. Warren finished his outing charged with no earned runs, a detail that will matter when Aaron Boone weighs his October pitching options.
The Yankees entered the eighth with two hits and trailing by a run. George Lombard Jr., the 21-year-old rookie shortstop, opened the frame and eventually came around to score. Caballero evened it at 2-2 with a one-out single that drove Lombard home.
What happened next is the part the Yankees will remember. With the score tied, Anthony Volpe and Caballero pulled off a double steal, putting two runners in scoring position and forcing Minnesota into a defensive corner. Ben Rice followed with a broken-bat single that dropped just beyond the reach of a diving Ryan Kreidler, scoring both runners for a 4-2 lead.
Cody Bellinger singled. Then Judge cleared everything out with his three-run drive, and a 2-1 game had become a 7-2 blowout in a matter of minutes. Caballero finished 2-for-4 with a home run and two RBIs.
A clubhouse convinced it is only getting started
The Yankees had already secured their berth before the final out. Word reached them mid-game that the Toronto Blue Jays had lost to the Detroit Tigers, which was enough to punch the ticket. Boone described the initial reaction as muted. Bench coach Brad Ausmus summed up the mood before the party grew louder.
“Well, back to the playoffs,” Ausmus said, in what Boone described as “very subdued” fashion.
The tone shifted once the game was in hand. For Judge, the night carried a message aimed well beyond Minnesota. He framed the clinch as a starting line, not a finish.
“The group we have, you get us in there [the playoffs], anything can happen,” Judge said. “I like our chances.”
Warren, whose strong outing was nearly wasted, pointed to the roster’s ceiling once it is whole again. His answer captured the confidence running through the room.
“When we’re at full strength, I feel like we’re unstoppable,” Warren said. “I think we’re a really good team. We’re looking to do more. This is the baseline. This is what we’re expected to do. So it’s continuing to move forward and push the needle.”
Judge kept returning to a single word to describe the group that ground through the summer without him.
“There’s a lot of grit in this team,” Judge added.
Why the win matters beyond the berth
The clinch settles one question and sharpens another. At 87-63, the Yankees remain 3 1/2 games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East with a four-game series in the Bronx looming next week, beginning Sept. 22. The division is not out of reach, but the margin is thin and the schedule is short.
New York also pushed its lead over the Boston Red Sox for the top AL wild card, keeping home-field advantage in play should the two rivals meet in a first-round series again. The Yankees have won more games since the trade deadline than all but three teams in the majors, and they carry the lowest team ERA in baseball into the final stretch.
The offensive blueprint on display Monday is the one the Yankees have wanted for months. Caballero’s power and speed, Rice’s situational contact, a rookie setting the table, and Judge’s thunder behind them. Austin Wells added a solo homer in the ninth. It was not one superstar carrying a lineup. It was layers of it contributing on the same night.
The number that separates this team: 35 and counting
Monday marked the Yankees’ 35th comeback win of the season, a figure that has quietly become one of the defining traits of the 2026 club. Comeback victories are not a fluke stat late in September. They are a pattern, and this group has leaned on it repeatedly during the months Judge missed.
The double steal that broke the eighth inning open is the detail that should worry the rest of the American League. Power has never been this team’s question. Manufacturing a run with two tied-game steals in a rainy, tight, playoff-clinching game is a different skill, and it is the kind of play that decides October innings when the long ball does not come.
For Warren, the strong outing complicates a decision rather than settling it. Boone must still determine whether the right-hander starts a postseason game or moves to a relief role. Another clean line, spoiled only by defense, gives the manager one more strong arm to weigh and one more reason the choice will not be easy.
New York now turns to its final 12 games with a berth secured, a captain finally swinging like himself, and a division race that runs straight through the Bronx. The Yankees are in. Whether they arrive in October as a wild card or an AL East champion is the question the next two weeks will answer.
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