Aaron Judge hit a two-run drive into Monument Park for his first home run of this postseason, and the New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Guardians 6-3 on Tuesday night to take a 2-0 AL Championship Series lead.

Judge, who entered with just one RBI in the playoffs, hit a sacrifice fly in a two-run second that put the Yankees ahead 3-0. With New York leading 4-2 in the seventh, the likely AL MVP drove a fastball at the letters from Hunter Gaddis 414 feet to center for his 14th career postseason home run.

Yankees’ Aaron Judge hits his first homer of the postseason, solidifying the win over the Guardians

In a matchup of aces who had off nights, Cleveland’s Tanner Bibee got just four outs in the shortest start of his professional career and an erratic Gerrit Cole was chased after four walks in 4 1/3 innings.

Winner Clay Holmes, Tim Hill and Tommy Kahnle combined for 3 2/3 scoreless innings. José Ramírez hit a ninth-inning home run off Luke Weaver, just the second earned run New York’s bullpen has allowed over 23 1/3 innings in six postseason games.

After a day off, Game 3 is Thursday in Cleveland. The Yankees lead the ALCS 2-0 for the first time since 2009 against the Los Angeles Angels.

New York’s Gleyber Torres reached base leading off for the fifth time in the playoffs and had three hits. Anthony Rizzo had two hits and is 3-for-7 in two games since returning from a pair of fractured fingers that caused him to miss the Division Series.

Rookie shortstop Brayan Rocchio and right fielder Will Brennan committed run-scoring errors for the Guardians.

Rocchio dropped Judge’s first-inning popup, allowing Torres to score. After Cleveland closed to 3-2, Brennan bobbled the ball when he tried for a barehand pickup of Rizzo’s sixth-inning double that caromed off the low wall down the right-field line. Anthony Volpe, who had been on first, sprinted home.

Steven Kwan extended his Cleveland-record postseason hitting streak to 12 games.

Alex Verdugo had an opposite-field RBI double in the two-run second that glanced off a shoulder of left field umpire Vic Carapazza and went down the line.

Cleveland closed to 3-2 in the fifth when Josh Naylor hit a sacrifice fly and, after Holmes relieved with the bases loaded, Will Brennan grounded into a run-scoring forceout.

Cleveland went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 runners.

Cole escaped two-on, one-out trouble in the third and then a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the fourth when pinch-hitter David Fry fouled out and Rocchio took a knuckle curve at the top of the strike zone for a called third strike in a nine-pitch at-bat.

Holmes struck out Austin Hedges on a low sinker to leave the bases loaded in the fifth.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Guardians: RHP Alex Cobb was removed from the roster with a lower back strain sustained in the opener and replaced by RHP Ben Lively.

UP NEXT

Yankees RHP Clarke Schmidt starts Thursday at Cleveland. He allowed two runs and four hits over 4 2/3 innings in Division Series Game 3, wasting a 2-0 lead before New York won 3-2. He faced the Guardians once this year, pitching five scoreless innings before allowing a pair of runs — one unearned — in the sixth inning of a 3-2 victory.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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South Korean football player Hwang Ui-jo has apologised for secretly filming sexual encounters with his partners.

Prosecutors say the 31-year-old striker filmed sexual encounters with two of his partners without their consent on four occasions between June and September 2022.

In his first court appearance in Seoul on Wednesday, Hwang said he was “deeply sorry” for causing “disappointment”.

The former striker had just last month left England’s Nottingham Forest for Turkey’s Alanyaspor.

The videos came to light after Hwang’s sister-in-law shared them on social media last June, in an attempt to blackmail him.

She was sentenced to three years in prison in September for the blackmail after Hwang sued her.

However, the charges against him proceeded as prosecutors said he filmed the videos illegally.

Prosecutors refused to provide details on the women in the videos to prevent further harm.

“I will not do anything wrong in the future and will do my best as a footballer,” Hwang told the court in Seoul.

“I sincerely apologise to the victims who have been affected by my actions, and I am deeply sorry for the disappointment I have caused to all those who have cared and supported me,” he added.

Doug McIntyre

Soccer Journalist

For the first time in eight tries, Mexico finally got the better of the U.S. men’s national team, beating its biggest rival 2-0 in Tuesday’s friendly match in Guadalajara.

Raúl Jiménez’s sensational first half free kick was the difference between the squads, which met for the second and final time this year in a rare exhibition match south of the border. Cesar Huerta doubled El Tri’s advantage early in the second half, and the hosts never looked back against an American side missing star forward Christian Pulisic and several other starters. 

El Tri’s triumph over the USMNT was the first since 2019, the longest winless streak in the series’ 87-year history. The loss was the first for new U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino  in his second game at the helm. It came three days after the Argentine coach won his debut over Panama in Austin, Texas.

Here are a few quick takeaways from Tuesday’s contest.

Play of the game

The U.S. back line knew Jiménez intimately; the veteran target striker plays with Antonee “Jedi” Robinson at Premier League Fulham. American captain Tim Ream was a teammate of both there last year.

But Ream and Robinson were powerless to stop the 33-year-old’s curling screamer, which came after what U.S. players contended was a soft foul by Aidan Morris on Mexican winger Roberto Alvarado. Either way, there was no arguing with the quality of Jiménez’s 30-yard effort that beat Matt Turner clean and settled into the top corner of the U.S. keeper’s net.

Turning point

Even with almost an entire half of the match still to play, Huerta’s strike effectively killed the game off then and there:

Truth be told though, the odds were always stacked against the Americans in this one. Their historic unbeaten streak was never going to last forever, least of all in Mexico, where the U.S. now has an all-time record of 1W-24L-4T.

And it was always unlikely to continue with more than half of Pochettino’s strongest possible lineup missing because of injuries or, in the case of Pulisic, load management. In addition to Pulisic, the Americans were also without Tyler Adams, Folarin Balogun, Sergiño Dest, Gio Reyna, Weston McKennie, Mark McKenzie (who was injured in the warmup and replaced by Miles Robinson) Chris Richards and Tim Weah.

Key stat

Mexico dominated from start to finish. But the most damning stat for the USMNT wasn’t that they gave up 15 shots to El Tri, or that the hosts had more of the ball despite leading for 68 of the 90 minutes.

No, the biggest sin was managing exactly zero shots on El Tri‘s goal until U.S. striker Brandon Vazquez forced a fine save from home keeper Luis Malagón in the 79th minute.

What’s next for Mexico?

On Nov. 14 and 18 El Tri will play an opponent to be determined — probably Honduras, though it will come down to the next Concacaf ranking — in the two-leg, home-and-home Concacaf Nations League quarterfinals.

What’s next for the United States?

The Americans will also be on Nations League duty next month — the first competitive games under Pochettino — as they begin their quest for a fourth consecutive title. As it stands today, Jamaica is their likeliest foe.

Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports. A former staff writer with ESPN and Yahoo Sports, he has covered U.S. men’s and women’s national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him @ByDougMcIntyre.

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Eleven years after their implementation, it sounds like a major change is coming to the UFC rankings system.

Tuesday, UFC CEO Dana White vented his frustration about Khalil Rountree’s position at No. 8 in the UFC light heavyweight rankings.

Rountree recently had success against champion Alex Pereira before being knocked out in Round 3. He did not shift upward in the rankings.

But it’s not just this issue that White has taken issue with. It’s also Renato Moicano’s stagnation after a dominant win over Benoit Saint Denis in September.

“I just can’t handle incompetence,” White said after Dana White’s Contender Series 76. “I just can’t take it anymore. It’s driving me crazy. I can’t let people that I don’t believe know what the f*ck that they’re talking about deal with the rankings anymore. I just can’t do it. I have to figure out a solution.”

Since 2013, the rankings have been voted upon by a UFC-selected group of outlets, with many others declining participation. Some outlets on the current panel are recognizable or even niche hardcore media. Others are non-MMA-specific radio stations and local newspapers.

While White did not give details into what a replacement system would look like, he indicated he is hearing one idea Wednesday.

“Tomorrow, I have a meeting with a group of people who are coming to me saying they have a solution to this problem,” White said. “God, I hope they are right. Because I’m going to change it. The media will no longer control the rankings in the UFC.”

One solution White pushed back against was internally-controlled rankings. White said he, the matchmakers Mick Maynard and Sean Shelby, and UFC CBO Hunter Campbell should not participate in that process because of bias and that a third party must be in charge.

“We can’t do it,” White said. “I don’t think that it’s right that we would do the rankings. No matter how unbiased you try to be, it’s impossible. I’ll be honest with you, there are some fighters I don’t like. There are fighters that I really like. There are things that are good for the business.

“… I don’t want that on our hands at all. Not mine, not Sean’s (Shelby), not Mick’s, not Hunter’s – nobody’s. There has to be a third party or AI or something that does the rankings. It’s impossible not to biased. I believe there is bias with the media, too. It’s impossible not to be biased.”

Dana White does not like the idea of Donald Cerrone coming out of retirement.

On Tuesday, “Cowboy” Cerrone announced that he intends to end his retirement and return to the UFC for two more fights. The 41-year-old’s announcement was mostly met with enthusiasm from fans and fellow fighters, but the UFC CEO was not among them. In fact, White was unequivocal in his dislike for Cerrone coming back to MMA.

“I hate it. I hate it,” White said at his post-Contender Series media scrum on Tuesday. “Love him, hate that.

“He retired. For what? What’s left to prove? If you want to make money, let’s figure something else out. I hate it. When guys retire, they retire for a reason. They don’t just retire because — they retire because they know it’s over. They know it is.

“Not just this sport but any professional sport, is hard to walk away from. Not just the money — that’s obviously a very hard part of it — but the feeling of walking out of that tunnel, the feeling of getting in the cage and the place is packed. Look at every time we’re at a show and we show Cowboy Cerrone on the screen, the place goes nuts. He’s beloved. He’s beloved because the guy goes to war, and he’s been in wars for years, and it’s time to not go to war anymore. There’s nothing left to prove for him.”

Cerrone is one of the most decorated fighters in UFC history, with a number of promotional records to his name. After retiring from the sport in 2022, he was inducted in the UFC Hall of Fame in 2023 in the Modern wing. However, the end of Cerrone’s career left much to be desired as he lost six of his final seven fights, with only a No-Contest in between the losses.

White isn’t sure exactly why Cerrone wants to return but if it’s a matter of money, White says they can always figure something else out.

“I’d rather work something else out with him, figure out another way,” White said. “If it’s about money, then he can do something else. Because he ain’t going to fight for the rest of his life and he’s always going to need to make money. So let’s figure that out now instead of three years from now.”

Based on Cerrone’s statements though, it doesn’t seem like money is the primary motivator. “Cowboy” currently has 48 fights in his career in either the UFC or WEC, and explicitly noted he’d like to make it to 50.

But White appears to be more concerned with Cerrone’s longterm health than anything else, and it doesn’t seem like “Cowboy” will get his wish unless he can change White’s mind.

“Cerrone shouldn’t think about fighting again,” White said. “Cerrone needs to think about what’s next. He should have been thinking about it two years ago but apparently he didn’t, and he needs to. But we’re here for him. We love Cerrone. We’ll help in any way we can. I don’t want to see him get punched in the face anymore.”