You wouldn’t have known it from the way Aaron Judge swung the bat on Sunday, but his back bothered him prior to the Yankees’ 12-5, rubber match win over the Athletics.
“I was just a little banged up pregame,” Judge said, downplaying the ache after Aaron Boone briefly mentioned it in his postgame press conference.
Still, Boone opted to give the right fielder a DH day instead of a full day off. It proved to be a fruitful decision, as Judge crushed a pair of two-run homers in the victory.
First, Judge took former teammate Luis Severino, who allowed six earned runs in his return to the Bronx, 402 feet deep to left in the fourth inning. An encore followed in the seventh, as Judge hammered a Tyler Ferguson pitch 426 feet and into the visiting bullpen.
Cody Bellinger scored on both homers.
“I was just feeding off our teammates,” Judge said. “All those guys are having great at-bats in front of me. Especially the past couple of weeks, I feel like Belly and [Trent Grisham] have been on base every single time I’ve stepped up to the plate. So I was happy to kind of deliver there and get another two runs with the second one.”
Judge also reasoned that his cranky back helped him homer.
“Just do a little less, I don’t know,” Judge said when asked how. “It got me right.”
Judge now has 30 home runs this season, putting him two behind Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh for the major league lead.
This is Judge’s sixth 30-homer season and his fifth in a row. With the 33-year-old heading to his seventh All-Star Game, he’s also just one of two players to hit at least 30 homers before the Midsummer Classic in four different seasons, per Stathead’s Katie Sharp.
Mark McGwire is the other.
Asked about his feats, Judge, always one to resist self-adulation, praised the people around him.
“A lot of that’s just a credit to the teams I’ve been on, the coaches that have been around me to help me get in this position,” he said.
Judge’s double-dinger day followed a dry spell for the reigning MVP, as he hit .179 with a .678 OPS, three homers, four RBI, 10 walks and 25 strikeouts over his previous 16 games. He had been flirting with a .400 average, but he’s down to a still-absurd .356.
That leads all of baseball.
“Again, I never really worry about him,” Boone said.
Asked if he noticed anything different with Judge on Sunday — besides his back — Boone said the performance boiled down to timing.
“Every hitter is a little bit different, right?” the manager said. “But everyone’s gotta kind of get into position on time, early, whatever their move is. His is different than the next guy and the next guy. Really, that’s all it is, that last wave of really good timing of getting into your move so your swing comes out and the right decision comes out. So when you see a guy struggling, it’s not so much he’s pulling off the ball or – it’s he’s usually not in the position on time to fire his proper swing.”
