In first postseason start, García fires up hometown crowd with go-ahead blast

NEW YORK -- Luis García Jr. got only a taste of the vaunted Yankee Stadium postseason atmosphere in the club’s Game 1 win as a pinch-hitter, getting robbed on an unreal double play with the bases loaded in the seventh inning in his first career postseason at-bat. He was lifted for a defensive replacement the following frame, ending his cameo before it ever really got going.

In Game 2 of the American League Wild Card Series on Wednesday night against the Red Sox, García flipped the script and became the inciting event for a raucous Bronx crowd in the series-clinching 9-2 win -- sending the Yankees on their way to an AL Division Series battle with the Tampa Bay Rays.

García crushed a no-doubt home run in the fourth inning off starter Sonny Gray, launching off his bat with an exit velocity of 107 mph deep into the right-center-field bleachers to give New York a 1-0 lead. He jumped on a 1-2 sweeper on the low-inside corner, simultaneously giving starter Max Fried a lead and waking up the sold-out stadium in an instant.

García, hitting in the No. 3 spot of the lineup in his first career postseason start, opened his postseason account in a way that felt especially earned. In the first frame, he lined out to right field to end the inning, retiring on a ball that left his bat with a 108.5 mph exit velocity.

Since arriving in New York from the Nationals at the Trade Deadline for the price of four pitchers, García has made the right side of the field at Yankee Stadium his happy place. After the deal, he slashed .316/.369/.558 with six home runs and five doubles in home games, peppering the right-field wall with regularity. And while the absence of Aaron Judge continues to loom large in the Yankees’ lineup, there’s a sense of pride that he feels helping to shoulder the load while their captain heals up.

“Having Judge not be in the lineup, at the same time we still have a big responsibility to do our job and go out there and do the best we can on the field,” García said before the game.

The 26-year-old has viewed his acquisition by the club as a warm, sentimental homecoming -- all the while understanding the key role he has been asked to play as an impact left-handed bat. He was born in New York, and he has continually spoken at length about the amount of family that he still has in the city who have helped him settle into his new surroundings. That feeling also immediately extended to those in the Yankees’ clubhouse.

“So coming in, you feel a little afraid, if you will, that you have to do that over again,” García said about adjusting to a new team. “But I can tell you that from the moment that I walked into the clubhouse, that fear went away very quickly because the guys made me feel as part of this team immediately.”