The walk that will do the most damage to the Yankees isn’t the one that sent the message the other day when Gleyber Torres advanced to first base, looked like he was going to hit a home run, only to end up with a single and Aaron Boone replacing him shortly thereafter.
Everything Aaron Judge is accumulating is on purpose…
Unless Austin Wells, Giancarlo Stanton and the hitters behind Judge make him regret that strategy.
“You’re going to see that more and more,” Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker said. “He’s in such good form right now that it’s going to become the norm.”
“I think he’s a good player,” Walker said before Sunday’s game, before he and manager John Schneider decided to intentionally walk Judge three times — two of which were unusual but not as unusual as Saturday’s.
“I’m going to walk them, I’m going to put them in a situation where they could lose with a single, but I’m not going to let them swing the bat. I’m just going to give the next batter an opportunity. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen a lot, maybe more than once,” Walker said before pitching the final game of the three-game series.
On Sunday, Judge became the first Yankees player to be intentionally walked three times in a game since Bernie Williams on Sept. 26, 1999. Judge also joined Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez as the only major leaguers to be intentionally walked three times in a game in the past three seasons.
The Yankees failed to score in three innings when Judge reached base on a walk, but beat Toronto 4-3 on a walk-off hit by DJ LeMahieu.
Despite the loss, Toronto laid out a blueprint for what to expect from the Yankees in the closing stages as the importance of the game increases: Essentially, opponents will try to minimize the chances of an “All Rise” moment.
Judge has been in baseball since May and is basically playing like early 2000s Barry Bonds: He doesn’t have many balls to hit, but for some reason he can’t stop hitting home runs on balls that are close to home plate.
Judge, who hit home runs in the first inning on Friday and Saturday, thought Schneider had had enough: Judge is now tied with the Yankees and Babe Ruth with 16 first-inning homers in 2024 and 41 career homers, eight more than anyone else.
Judge was intentionally walked with two outs and the bases loaded in the top of the second inning on Saturday. It was the first time a player had been intentionally walked with the bases loaded in the top of the second inning since Aug. 10, 1972. And it was a weak-hitting catcher, Glenn Borgman, who replaced the pitcher Saturday, the better-hitting Wells.
But there’s a difference between great and ethereal, and Judge was an alien to the world of baseball. That’s why manager Aaron Boone, when informed before Sunday’s game how long it had been since he’d walked someone like him, said, “Oh, that goes beyond the Bonds treatment. I call it the Judge treatment now.”
Judge was actually a better overall hitter than he was in 2022, when he hit a Yankees-record 62 home runs and never was intentionally walked more than three times in a game that year.
“We know our thought process. [Saturday] “When you watch this series and watch the tape from this year, you can see he’s in a different place right now. … I’ve never seen anything like that in my 12 years as a pitching coach since I coached somebody,” Walker said. “And [manager John Schneider] “He was pretty adamant about it. I can’t think of anyone else we’d consider doing it.”
On Sunday, Judge struck out with runners on first and second in the first inning, then singled in the third inning. Then he was intentionally walked in the fifth inning with a runner on first and no outs and the bases loaded. Just after Soto’s home run in the seventh inning gave the Yankees a 3-2 lead, Judge was walked with no outs and a runner on first. In a more traditional twist, he was walked with two outs and runners on second and third in the eighth inning with the score tied.
Judge now has 11 intentional walks, including four in his past two games. Of course, that doesn’t include unintentional walks. He’s tied for the most intentional walks in the MLB with 92 (tied with Soto). Of course, two intentional walks always put the bases on base. The question is, do the intentional walks do damage?
Despite Wells’ high level of performance since the end of June, Yankees cleanup hitters entered Sunday with the second-lowest batting average (.217), on-base percentage (.277) and third-lowest slugging percentage (.340). One reason teams may be avoiding Judge is that he was 9-for-16 (.563) entering Sunday with three home runs in late scoring position. Other Yankees hitters were 122-for-22 (.180) with five home runs.
“Every team, every pitching coach, every strategy, every pitcher’s pre-game meeting, they pick a guy who’s never going to lose, and he still loses,” Walker said. “I know the strategy is not to give him anything to hit, and yet he still gets hits. And big hits. Amazing. He hits to right field, he misses inside and hits it 470 feet. He’s a complete hitter.”
Toronto got tired of watching that, so they let Judge go, and unless his teammates make opponents pay the price for that strategy, the Yankees can’t keep running to Heroes’ Canyon.
