BALTIMORE (AP) — Aaron Judge hit his 49th home run, Giancarlo Stanton ripped a three-run shot and the New York Yankees got a dominant pitching performance from Carlos Rodón in a 6-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday night.

New York closed within two games of first place in the AL East behind Toronto, which lost to Kansas City. Both the Yankees and Blue Jays have seven games left, and Toronto holds the tiebreaker.

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Stanton put New York up 3-0 in the first inning with his 450th career homer, and Judge went deep leading off the third. Both drives came off Tomoyuki Sugano (10-9), who threw 87 pitches over three stressful innings before being lifted.

Staked to an early lead, Rodón (17-9) had little difficulty reaching a career high in wins. The 32-year-old lefty gave up one run and four hits in seven innings, walking one and striking out eight.

Coby Mayo doubled home the Orioles’ lone run in the seventh.

The last-place, injury-riddled Orioles tied a dubious major league record when José Espada entered to pitch the seventh inning. He’s the 70th player used by Baltimore this season, matching the mark set by the Miami Marlins in 2024.

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Key moment

Sugano retired the first two batters in the first inning before Judge and Cody Bellinger singled ahead of Stanton, who hit an opposite-field fly over the right-field scoreboard. New York has scored in the first inning in 61 games, tops in the majors, and is 42-19 in those games.

Key stat

Only four players in baseball history had more home runs than Stanton after 1,719 games: Mark McGwire, Babe Ruth, Alex Rodriguez and Harmon Killebrew. Stanton’s 450 home runs are the most among active players.

Up next

Rookie right-hander Cam Schlittler (3-3, 3.41 ERA) starts for the Yankees in the series finale Sunday. Baltimore’s Kyle Bradish (1-1, 2.45) makes his fifth start since returning in late August from Tommy John surgery.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB