Public service announcement: It’s hard to hit a home run in the major leagues.
I felt the need to emphasize this point again because if you blink these days you might miss what Aaron Judge said.
The Yankees recently played in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and Judge makes all the stadiums look like the ones there, a Little League version of them.
The Yankees beat the Guardians 6-0 in a Thursday afternoon game. Judge’s home run prompted the Guardians to walk him for fear he would homer again, and Austin Wells and especially Giancarlo Stanton made Cleveland pay for intentional passes.
What Judge is doing — a season that’s obviously better than his first 62-home run season and on track for another 60-home run season, maybe a Triple Crown and maybe a second AL MVP award — isn’t just leaving fans speechless and reporters searching for otherworldly new words to describe it, it’s leaving his teammates in awe.
“You have to be grateful you got to watch this,” Gerrit Cole said when I asked for a recap. “The last people who watched a season like this were alive in the 1920s. It was a very different game then.”
All that paperwork aside, Judge hit his 48th home run and is on pace for 61 homers and 400 bases (he last achieved this in 2001), while batting .334/.465 (best in MLB)/.726 (best in 20 years). How fitting that No. 99’s video game streak spans 99 games, dating back to April 27. In that span, Judge has 44 homers and a .379/.507/.833 batting average. No player has ever batted at least .375 with 44 homers in a 99-game span.
“What the best players in the world do is make it look easy,” Stanton said. “We all rely on that and he amazes us every night.”
That’s Stanton. He hit 59 homers that year and now has 423 for his career. But Judge is just playing a different game now. Against Ruth. Against Bonds. And increasingly, against Judge.
Consider the fourth inning, which was scoreless. Judge was on base with one out. The count was 2-1. The changeup is Gavin Williams’ least used pitch, especially against righties. Of the 369 pitches he’s thrown to righties this year, only eight have been changeups (2.2%). Williams threw the changeup 10 times in this outing — nine to lefties and one to Judge. But Guardians manager Steven Vogt almost prophetically emphasized that Judge is a “great hitter,” not just one with power, but one who never seems off-balance or out of control at the plate.
“He doesn’t swing with power,” Vogt said admiringly. “He just touches the ball and it’s out.”
Judge touched a changeup, the ball curved inside the right-field foul pole, and Jose Trevino said, “We’re in an era of pitchers, and you see No. 99 walking up, they make their best pitch, and he hits a home run.” [Williams] Throw with a probability of about 1% [to righties]… So he sees the best in everybody at a time when you want the best. It’s just incredible. It’s just incredible.”
The next inning saw a string of great at-bats for the Yankees. Ben Rice and Gleyber Torres both walked after trailing 0-2. Juan Soto was forced out. Vogt handed the ball to right-handed sidearmer Nick Sandlin, who Judge thought would get the ball to Sandlin. But after Sandlin trailed 2-0, Judge loaded the bases with his 16th intentional pass (also the most in MLB). Wells hit a sacrifice fly to center field. And Stanton worked a full count after 0-2 and then hit a three-run homer.
The Yankees, fueled by Judge’s power and the fear of that power, won the first five runs and passed the Guardians (73-54) for the best record in the AL with a 75-53 record.
“It’s just historic,” Cole said. “It’s been an amazing experience.”
Cole pitched six scoreless innings, despite walking five and striking out one, but only allowed one hit, a leadoff hit by Steven Kwan. That was Cleveland’s only hit. The Guardians were hitless in 10 at-bats with runners on base, while the Yankees were 1-for-11, including a home run by Stanton. But the Yankees had great at-bats from everyone except Alex Verdugo, making for a great chorus for manager Judge.
“What’s even better than his strength is his hitting ability is elite. One of the best on the planet,” Cole said. “And then you add in the power, and even a mis-hit can be a 101 mph double, and not just get a hit or hit a 102 mph ball. [mph] “You throw it in the air to the other side of the field and it disappears. It’s very lethal and very effective.”
Another PSA: Watch as many as you can, because you never know when you’ll see this again.
