In professional sports, what separates the true superstars from the garden-variety ones is their ability to deliver when it matters the most. While Aaron Judge hasn’t exactly led the New York Yankees back to World Series glory just yet, no one can fault him for not trying, especially when he put the Yankees on his back in their 9-6 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 3 of the ALDS on Tuesday night, saving their season.

The Yankees were staring at the face of elimination to start the night, and Carlos Rodon proceeded to allow six runs in 2.1 innings of work. Going down 6-1 in the early goings of the game against the Blue Jays is a recipe for disaster after Toronto hasn’t lost a single game all year in which they’ve led by at least five runs.

But this Yankees team does not care about precedent, especially not Judge. Judge drove in Trent Grisham with a double in the third inning to cut the deficit to four and went on to tie the game at 6-6 with a three-run home run off the foul pole in the following inning.

Judge has been at his best all season long, and on the postseason thus far this year, his OPS of 1.304 is somehow better than that of his 1.144 tally in the regular season. The Yankees star is clearly the best hitter in MLB right now, and manager Aaron Boone gave him his well-deserved flowers for a job well done in staving off elimination.

“It was ‘best player in the game’-type performance. It was special,” Boone said in his postgame presser, via Ryan Field of Channel 7 Eyewitness News.

“It was ‘best player in the game’-type performance. It was special”

— Aaron Boone on Aaron Judge’s gigantic Game 3#RepBX

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The Yankees will need more of those plays from Judge if they were to send the series back to the north of the border.

Aaron Judge comes up huge for the Yankees when they needed him to

Some fans were pointing out on social media over the past few days that Judge was only getting on base and driving in runs against the Blue Jays when the game’s already out of the Yankees’ reach. But Judge just squashed all of those criticisms and put them to bed, as he delivered in crucial run-scoring situations for New York with their season on the line.

It helps, of course, that the Yankees are playing at home and might even be getting some help from some supernatural forces. Can they show up yet again in Game 4, which will be held tomorrow night at 7:08 PM E.T.?