Judge slam halts HR drought: ‘Was it 16 games?’
Aaron Judge ended the longest home run drought of his major league career in the loudest way possible Friday night.
With the New York Yankees facing a three-run deficit against the Boston Red Sox in the seventh inning, Judge clubbed a go-ahead grand slam for his major-league-leading 52nd home run of the season.
The swat unleashed thunderous delirium at Yankee Stadium. MVP chants prompted Judge, the American League MVP front-runner, to emerge from the dugout for a curtain call.
The blast was Judge’s eighth career grand slam and his first home run since slugging two against the Colorado Rockies on Aug. 25. He had gone 16 games, 60 at-bats and 75 plate appearances without one.
After the game, which New York held on to win 5-4, Judge claimed the length of the drought was news to him.
“Was it 16 games? I didn’t really know that,” Judge said. “It’s just another day. I really don’t focus on hitting homers. I don’t focus on any of that. I’ve got a job to do.
“Sixteen games, is that a lot or was it not? I don’t know.”
Judge was told it’s the most games he has gone without a home run as a major leaguer.
“It’s the most?” Judge asked. “It’ll probably be longer at some point in my career. So we’ll definitely break that.”
Yankees starter Clarke Schmidt wasn’t buying Judge’s ignorance.
“We try to keep our heads out of the weeds and just kind of pay attention to what we can control,” Schmidt said. “But Judge, he’s very aware of stuff like that, I think. So it’s hard to ignore. It feels like when he has two games in a row where he doesn’t get a homer, something’s going wrong.”
Most importantly for the Yankees, they held the lead after Judge’s homer for their third straight dramatic win. The result, coupled with an Orioles loss, moved New York three games ahead of Baltimore for first place in the American League East with 14 games remaining. The three-game division lead is the Yankees’ largest since June 7.
Scoreboard watching is heightened in October, but Judge said he believes the Yankees worrying about other teams’ results hurt them during their funk against inferior opponents at the end of August into September.
Aaron Judge claimed ignorance when it came to the length of his home run drought, the longest of his career at 16 games. “It’s the most?” Judge asked. “It’ll probably be longer at some point in my career. So we’ll definitely break that.” Luke Hales
“I think we were paying attention to the standings a couple of weeks ago, and I think that’s when we just kept going back and forth, kind of passing the lead,” Judge said. “We all talked in this room and said, ‘Hey, if we just focus on us and what we got to do, we’ll be where we want to be.’ So hopefully nobody’s looking at the standings. I’m certainly not.”
The Orioles had already lost to the Detroit Tigers when Anthony Volpe stepped into the batter’s box to lead off the bottom of the seventh inning with New York down 4-0. The Red Sox were in control. Then they unraveled.
