Aaron Judge's Hot Bat Highlights Powerful Opening Act For The New York Yankees
In April 2022 before seeing the first of his 2,906 pitches, Aaron Judge spent time addressing the fact he and the Yankees could not agree to a new contract heading into his walk year, giving him the title of the most talked about pending free agent for that season.
It turned out to be a record-setting season with Judge slugging 62 homers to break the AL-record set by Roger Maris and creating a series of live cut-ins on television even on college football Saturdays.
The home run chase occurred after Judge hit one homer in his first 13 games, offering no sign about where his season would wind up in the context of baseball records.
Last year, the power was not slow to pick up, but the average was creeping along slowly, and Judge was hitting slightly under .200 or slightly above it towards the conclusion of the first month. Eventually any discourse about his low batting average and moving him in the lineup evaporated as Judge finished with a .322 average, 58 homers and 144 RBIS, barely missing out on matching Mickey Mantle in the Triple Crown department.
Judge's special regular season did not carry over into the postseason, culminating in his error in center field in Game 5 of the World Series when it took the Dodgers about 20 minutes to turn a five-run deficit into a tie game and eventual championship celebration.
Repeatedly Judge spoken about the extra motivation of not getting it done and perhaps it is a subtle message about discourse surrounding the Yankee lineup missing the injured Giancarlo Stanton and devoid of Juan Soto because of the massive contract the Mets gave him.
Whatever it is, Judge is off to one of the best starts of any player in recent history with five homers and 15 RBIs in six games. Judge will obviously not hit 135 homers and drive in 405 runs, which is the pace a small sampling of the first six games puts him at, but it gives of an indication of another dominant season.
'I feel like he's still getting there, which is remarkable,' Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. 'It's that part of me that takes him for granted a little bit. I just feel like he should get an extra- base hit every time. I kind of say it out loud just to try and remind myself what we're watching every day.'
If anything, there will be daily postgame notes about some kind of record or milestone he hit and after his fifth homer and RBI single gave him 15 RBIs, there were two.
The first was the homer being his 500th career extra-base hit since debuting with a homer in his first at-bat on Aug. 13, 2016. It occurred in his 999th game and the only Yankees to get there faster were Joe DiMaggio (853 games) and Lou Gehrig (874 games).
When DiMaggio got his 500th career extra-base hit in a game at St. Louis on May 17, 1942, he was five years younger than Judge. Gehrig got his 500th extra-base hit on Aug. 5, 1930 against the Washington Senators in his age-27 season.
All of this occurred in a week when 'torpedo bats' raced through the news cycle with Judge's contribution to this conversation being a look of surprise when asked about them and what amounts to a small mic-drop moment for the businesslike slugger when he cited his past achievements as a reason not to use to latest tool.
If anything, Judge's hot start is ramping up his own appreciation society within his own clubhouse.
'He's Aaron Judge,'' Jazz Chisholm Jr. said of the two-time MVP, who is hitting .417 or 11 points higher than Ted Williams in 1941. 'Guys keep getting on for him and he keeps on performing and showing why he's the MVP of the league and one of the best players ever to play the game.
Chisholm has batted fourth in the spot behind Judge for the past five games instead of being the leadoff hitter where he batted 60 times for the Marlins before being traded to the Yankees in July. Chisholm is hitting fourth as the Yankees succeed with two non-traditional leadoff hitters in Austin Wells and Paul Goldschmidt.
'Last year, he hit 58 home runs and had a bad first month,' Chisholm said. 'Imagine right now what he's about to do.'
The pace Judge is on is all part of overreaction week when the first few games are magnified even more. It was something manager Aaron Boone touched upon a week ago before a pitch was thrown by anyone.
'It's the week of overreaction, where we get off to a really good start and we're going to win the World Series,' Boone said. 'We get off to a tough start this week, and it's, well — so you want to get rid of that noise.'
And the noise is coming from Judge's bat in a powerful start for the Yankees.
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