Two years ago, Aaron Judge was chasing Roger Maris’s American League home run record of 61, which many consider to be MLB’s true home run record, set in 1961.
Judge is on a similar pace this season, but is aiming for his own record of 62 home runs rather than Maris’ milestone.
He had 32 home runs in 88 games as of Thursday, two ahead of his 2022 pace.
Judge is on track to hit 59 home runs this season, but that includes the first month of the year, when he had a rough start, hitting just four home runs in his first 27 games with the Yankees.
“It’s hard to follow that. [number] “There’s a history of all the guys who’ve done it before me,” Judge said before Thursday’s game against the Reds in the Bronx, “but I’m not really worried about it. I’ve got a lot of other stuff I want to get done before I think about breaking the record again. If it happens, that’s great. It’ll be great.”
And as Judge made clear while on a historic 22-year pace, he is one of those who believe Barry Bonds’ 73 MLB home runs in 2001 were legitimate despite the controversy surrounding his drug use, saying at the time, “That’s my standard. [Bonds] “When I was a kid, I used to throw the ball into the bay with ease, and that hasn’t changed.”
Judge, who had hit 26 home runs in his past 51 games before Thursday, has continued to draw comparisons to Bonds, and manager Aaron Boone said Wednesday he wouldn’t be surprised if opposing teams get something of a “Bonds treatment” by pitching around Judge more frequently. Judge told The Washington Post in June that he wouldn’t participate in the Home Run Derby later this month in Texas.
Asked Thursday about the possibility of overtaking Bonds, Judge said, “I don’t think anybody’s gonna beat that. It’s tough. When you get into your 50s and 60s, [in homers]Then the other pitchers start pitching differently. They don’t give you as many chances to hit. Like Bonds did that year, he only had to throw one hittable pitch in the series to strike him out. I don’t think we’ll ever see that again.”
Judge got a little more treatment in the second half of ’22, with eight intentional walks in his first 121 games and then 11 in his final 36.
Still, that’s far fewer than the 35 walks Bonds drew in 2003, and just a fraction of the 120 intentional walks he recorded in 2007.
“I’ve never seen a team make the pitch to me that they did to him,” Judge said of Bonds. “I hope that never happens.”
