You could see it coming – but it was still breathtaking.

The first flare-up came on Tuesday before the game, when Guardians manager Stephen Vogt promised to be “aggressive” ahead of ALCS Game 2. And it wasn't just words, because there he was warming up his best prep man, Cade Smith, for the second inning.

This frame had Anthony Volpe single, Anthony Rizzo single and Alex Verdugo RBI double. It was 1-0 for the Yankees. Second and third. And then Gleyber Torres showed up and, yeah, you can see that at this point. But could you really believe it?

Did he really want to accompany the burning Juan Soto to load the bases, to get Smith to chase the struggling Judge – to work around someone else, to face the hitting monster that was thrown around and intentionally more than anyone else in this season ran?

In that moment in October, it made sense — that's how deep Judge's struggles have been this postseason and postseason years now.

Judge didn't have his Mark Vientos moment of feeling disrespected when he had the bases loaded in front of him and responded with a grand slam like the Mets' third baseman did in NLCS Game 2 in Los Angeles. He lifted a sacrifice fly.

But in his final at-bat of the night, Judge finally gave the Yankees something they had been missing despite winning this postseason. Room to breathe.

The Yankees have been playing the same game on a loop for more than a week – doing enough to win against an overmatched AL Central team. But they have the Royals and now the Guardians under control in close games. That's largely because the Yankees are a team that needs to hit home runs to score the majority of their points and find their inner monster.

And in five playoff games plus six innings on Tuesday, they had hit just five home runs, and all but the first – a two-run blast by Gleyber Torres in the opening game of the Division Series – were singles. Importantly, none came from Judge, who is so often the Yankees' go-to guy. As he goes, so does the Yankees' offense. And he entered those playoffs going 3-for-24 (.125) in his seventh inning and posted a .202 batting average in what is now his 50th postseason game.

But with one out in the seventh, Torres with his third hit and the Yankees at another nail-biting 4-2, Judge launched a Hunter Gaddis drive that drove a modest skyscraper high up the middle. It just carried on, as the force of a Judge blast tends to do. It landed in the net behind the wall, 414 feet from home plate. The Yankees had room to breathe. They led 6-2.

The final would be 6-3. So the Yankees lead this best-of-seven by two games to nil, giving them two wins out of their first AL pennant since 2009. And if that momentum has unleashed Judge, then getting to the World Series and doing something special there is even more viable.

Judge started this game more fortunately than well. For the fifth time in these playoffs, Torres and Soto opened the first inning with hits and handed Judge a baton to open the game. He hadn't been able to do that so far. And this time he hit a pop-up that shortstop Bryan Rocchio worked with Luis Castillo – clattering for Torres to score on the error. In the postseason, Judge has now been 1 for his last 22 with runners in scoring position.

For this reason, Vogt's strategy made sense in the second case. The Yankees had another hit, two more, and Vogt decided the best way to keep the Yankees from scoring again was to not throw to Soto and go after Judge. That was right for that moment. Against a pitcher as good as Smith, Judge did well, going 1-for-2 on a sacrifice fly — which held him to 0 for his last 21 in the postseason, when the count reached two hits.

Still, the Yankees remained in their usual role of not breaking away. As the start progressed, Gerrit Cole got worse and worse, scoring two runs in the fifth and not making it out of the inning. It was 3:2. The Yanks scored in the sixth, but both Jazz Chisholm and Rizzo were unforgivingly caught for straying too far from second base.

So the game stayed close. Vogt wanted to give it a try and thought that falling to second place wouldn't be elimination, but a huge step in that direction. He pinch-hit for his starting catcher, Bo Naylor, and loaded the bases against Cole in the fourth. At the end of that inning, he called on his top left-hander, Tim Herrin. And he turned to Gaddis — one of his four big backups along with Smith, Herrin and closer Emmanuel Clase — to start the seventh game and try to keep the Yankees at 4-2.

But Torres, who was a great hitter this October, led off with a single and after Soto flied out, Judge finally had a moment. A fan had yelled at Judge, “Time to wake up,” during his batting match against Smith in the second inning.

Better late than never. The judge hurt Gaddis deeply. The Yankees had room to breathe and ultimately another win. They have five of the eleven points they need to become champions.

And obviously the path from here to there will be a lot easier if Judge just shows any sign of breaking out.