(Photo credit: Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images)

Aaron Judge's surge is coinciding with the New York Yankees charging toward first place in the American League East.

A little over a month after being 6 1/2 games out of first place in the division, the Yankees can reclaim sole possession of the lead for the first time since July 1 when they host the Chicago White Sox on Thursday night.

The Yankees (90-68) are tied with the Blue Jays (90-68) atop the AL East after Judge hit his 50th and 51st homers on Wednesday in New York's 8-1 victory. Toronto holds the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Judge joined Babe Ruth, McGwire and Sammy Sosa as the only players to have four career 50-homer seasons. He hit a three-run homer to give the Yankees a 3-1 lead in the second inning and added a solo shot in the eighth.

Judge heads into Thursday with a major-league-leading .328 average and an big-league-best 1.136 OPS. He has reached base multiple times in 12 of his past 13 games and is hitting .365 (31-for-85) with 11 homers in his past 26 games.

'I feel like over the last couple of weeks, he's really starting to swing the bat really well again and having just really good at-bats night in and night out, at-bat after at-bat,' New York manager Aaron Boone said.

The Yankees have a chance to earn their fourth division title in eight seasons under Boone thanks to a 21-8 surge that began with a 7-2 win over the Boston Red Sox on Aug. 24. They started a seven-game winning streak that day.

As recently as Sept. 16, the Yankees were five games out, but they are 6-1 in their past seven contests and Toronto is 1-6 in that span.

'It's been a crazy 10 days, two weeks, and I think we all expected it to be this way, this final week,' Boone said. 'For us, it's about handling our business, it really is.'

The White Sox have been outscored 38-15 by the Yankees while losing five of the teams' six meetings this year.

Chicago (58-100) is 1-10 in its past games after finishing with just five hits on Wednesday. The White Sox scored their lone run on a sacrifice fly by Lenyn Sosa in the second inning before Judge hit his first homer of the night.

'It's definitely a number you don't want to get to,' Chicago pitcher Jonathan Cannon, who allowed Judge's 50th homer, said of the team taking its 100th loss of the year. 'It's definitely easy to see this season as a failure, but I think we have a ton of building blocks, a ton of positives to take away into the offseason and look to definitely take a huge step forward next year.'

Last year, the White Sox set a modern-era record (since 1900) for losses, going 41-121.

Carlos Rodon (17-9, 3.04 ERA), New York's likely Game 2 starter in the postseason, will start the series finale. Rodon has allowed two runs or fewer in nine straight starts, going 6-2 with a 2.30 ERA in that span.

Rodon last pitched on Saturday in a 6-1 win at Baltimore. He limited the Orioles to one run on four hits in seven innings while striking out eight and walking one.

Rodon is 2-0 with a 2.25 ERA in two career starts against the White Sox, the team he pitched for from 2015-21. He registered a win in Chicago on Aug. 29, when he fired six innings of one-run ball.

White Sox right-hander Davis Martin (7-10, 4.03 ERA) hopes to win consecutive starts for the first time in his career. Martin posted a victory on Friday when he allowed three runs on six hits in six innings as Chicago topped the San Diego Padres 4-3.

Martin took a no-decision against the Yankees on Aug. 28 in Chicago when he allowed four runs, three earned, in 3 2/3 innings. He gave up one run in 5 2/3 innings during a no-decision against them Aug. 14, 2024, in Chicago.

--Field Level Media