Yankees move within two games of Blue Jays as Giancarlo Stanton hits 450th home run

BALTIMORE — A Yankee reached a career milestone with a home run for a second straight night at Camden Yards.

This time it came in a victory.

Giancarlo Stanton, the sport’s active home run leader, hit the 450th of his career on Saturday night, a three-run shot to rightfield in the first inning that helped send the Yankees to a 6-1 win over the Orioles in front of 37,675 at Camden Yards.

“A cool round number,” said Stanton, who after the game exchanged a bat and “some balls” with the young fan who ended up with the milestone baseball — a Yankees fan who happened to be wearing a No. 27 jersey (Stanton’s number).

Young Yankees fan Everett caught G's 450th homer (while wearing a Stanton jersey) and asked for nothing in return for the ball 💙

G had the chance to meet Everett along with his father and grandfather after the game to hook them up with some signed baseballs and a bat 🤝 pic.twitter.com/902SjXGpIm

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) September 21, 2025

“It’s cool to see the names I’m catching and tying and going above,’’ he said. “Most important, it helped us win. Great day all-around.”

The Yankees, who also received Aaron Judge’s 49th home run of the year, bounced back from Friday night’s 4-2 loss, a game in which Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit his 30th homer and became the third Yankee to enter the 30-30 club (30 homers, 30 stolen bases in a single season).

The Yankees (87-68) pulled within two games of the Blue Jays (89-66) — who lost their fourth straight and second in a row to the Royals in Kansas City — for first place in the AL East. Toronto does own the tiebreaker after winning the season series, so the Yankees need to gain three games on Toronto in the final seven games to beat out the Blue Jays.

“We can’t really pay attention to them. We just have to do our thing every night,” Stanton said. “Without us winning, it doesn’t really matter what they’re doing. We’ve just got to win each day.”

The Yankees, who remained two games ahead of the Red Sox for the first wild card, have won 25 of 37 and went 19 games over .500, tying their season high.

Stanton’s homer came on a 2-and-2, 84-mph sweeper by Baltimore righthander Tomoyuki Sugano and traveled 358 feet to the opposite field. It gave Stanton 21 homers this season — in 70 games — and sent him past Vladimir Guerrero Sr. and Jeff Bagwell into sole possession of 41st place on the all-time list.

At No. 40 on the list is Carl Yastrzemski at 452. As far as active home run leaders are concerned, the Angels’ Mike Trout, who hit his 400th homer on Saturday night, is the runner-up to Stanton.

“Unicorn,” Aaron Boone said in describing Stanton. “It’s so unique how he does it. So unique just how routinely hard he hits the baseball. Just a really cool day for him and us as his teammates. He has so much respect from all of us. Just who he is, the way he goes about things. He’s just an awesome person, awesome teammate, and still going in what’s a Hall of Fame career. That’s a big number.”

Judge’s blast, a moonshot to leftfield in the third, gave the Yankees a 4-0 lead and put the two-time AL MVP one homer away from his fourth career season with at least 50 homers (he hit 58 last season in capturing his second AL MVP).

Judge, chasing his first career batting title, went 2-for-4 to raise his batting average to an MLB-leading .329 and his OPS to an MLB-leading 1.129.

Cody Bellinger and Anthony Volpe had two hits and a stolen base each.

Lefthander Carlos Rodon benefited from the offense but really didn’t need much of it, throwing seven dominant innings. Rodon, who is 8-3 with a 2.67 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP in his last 13 starts, allowed one run, four hits and a walk with eight strikeouts in improving to 17-9, 3.04. The run came in the sixth.

“That’s a pretty big number. That’s a lot of homers,” Rodon, who at one point retired 10 straight, said with a laugh of Stanton and 450. “I would say he’s making a case [for the Hall of Fame].”

Stanton — whose first career homer was a grand slam off the Rays’ Matt Garza on June 18, 2010, at Sun Life Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium and originally called Joe Robbie Stadium) in Miami while he was with the Marlins — said “it’s cool to hear” his name and Hall of Fame in the same sentence.

And about reaching 500, still a magical number when it comes to homers?

“A lot of swings away from 500,” he said with a smile. “Of course you think about it. You understand if you bear down that I’m capable of doing it. So it’s just one at a time. That’s all I can do.”