About one month ago, there were concerns that New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge had begun his descent. As of April 22, he was hitting .174/.308/.337 with three homers and 31 strikeouts. With Judge at 32 years old, it was very conceivable that his hard-swinging, high-strikeout approach was starting to catch up to him.
Let’s just say there aren’t as many concerns now.
In a 6-2 win over the San Francisco Giants on Friday, Judge clubbed his 19th and 20th home runs of the season to take sole possession of the MLB lead in long balls.
The first came in the first inning with runners on the corners, one out and the count full. Judge took a well-placed splitter from Giants starter Jordan Hicks and deposited it in the left-field stands.
Judge followed that up with another homer in the sixth inning, sending an inside sinker to dead center for his first multi-homer game of the season. He’s also the first player in MLB to reach 20 home runs.
Judge was previously tied at 18 homers with Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson and Houston Astros outfielder Kyle Tucker.
The first homer didn’t just give Judge the MLB lead, though. Per MLB Network, it also broke a record previously held by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig for the most extra-base hits ever hit by a Yankee in May, with 25.
It’s an admittedly specific statistic, but it still shows just how unstoppable Judge has been since he turned it on. He finished May hitting an unfathomable .371/.488/.928 with 14 homers. He now leads the AL in doubles (18), homers (20), walks (45), slugging percentage (.648), total bases (138) and OPS (1.056).
That effort, in addition to AL on-base percentage leader Juan Soto and a surprisingly strong Yankees rotation, has the Yankees holding a 40-19 record entering Friday, good for first place in the AL East.
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