BOSTON — Aaron Judge helped chase David Price early by hitting a home run to a part of Fenway Park where balls rarely travel.
Gary Sanchez did him one better.
The Yankees catcher, who tested his manager’s confidence with a sub-.200 batting average and poor defense for most of the season, hit two homers, the second a 479-foot shot clear out of the ballpark that sent New York to a 6-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox on Saturday night and tied their AL Division Series at one game apiece.
“Just a monster night,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “You know he’s capable of that. We all know he’s capable of that. That’s kind of what we’ve been waiting for to some degree, where he can take over a game on offense.”
One night after Chris Sale earned his first career playoff victory, Price fell to 0-9 in 10 postseason starts and was booed off the field after five outs by a Fenway crowd hoping to see the Red Sox protect the home-field advantage they earned with an AL East title and franchise-record 108 regular-season wins.
Instead, Masahiro Tanaka helped the wild-card Yankees claim the first victory by a road team in a Division Series game this year and gave them a chance to advance to the AL Championship Series with a pair of wins at home, where they are 7-0 over the past two postseasons.
Games 3 and 4 are at Yankee Stadium on Monday and Tuesday nights, with Game 5 back in Boston on Thursday, if necessary.
“We can’t wait,” Judge said. “We know our fans are waiting for us to come back home, especially with the series tied 1-1.”
Judge homered for the third straight playoff game, a 445-foot shot that landed in the back row of seats above the Green Monster , high above the 379-foot marker and about 10 feet to the left of the pole flying an American flag blowing straight out.
It was the longest home run of the postseason — for about five innings.
That’s when Sanchez aimed one in the same direction, sending it out of the park and onto Lansdowne Street.
ASTROS 3, INDIANS 1
HOUSTON — Marwin Gonzalez hit a go-ahead, two-run double, Alex Bregman homered for the second straight day and the Houston Astros beat the Cleveland Indians 3-1 Saturday to take a 2-0 AL Division Series lead.
Francisco Lindor put Cleveland ahead with a third-inning homer off winner Gerrit Cole, but Gonzalez gave the Astros the lead in the sixth with the third of his four hits, an opposite-field double to right off usually reliable reliever Andrew Miller.
Bregman homered against Trevor Bauer in the seventh, and the World Series champions moved within a win of a second straight trip to the AL Championship Series.
Dallas Keuchel starts for the Astros when the series resumes Monday in Cleveland. Mike Clevinger is scheduled to pitch for the Indians.