Yankees: Aaron Judge becomes second rookie ever to hit 40 homers

New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge is the second rookie ever to hit 40 home runs, but would need a strong finish to pass Mark McGwire’s rookie mark.

With two home runs on Sunday, and four dingers in his last seven games, it looks like Aaron Judge is getting out of the hitting funk he’s been in for the last couple months. Over the last two weeks, he’s hit .244/.418/.610. His strikeout rate during this stretch is just under 30 percent, which is better than his season-long rate. It’s a small sample size, of course, but it’s something for Yankees fans to be optimistic about.

The two home runs Judge hit on Sunday give him 41 for the season and make him only the second rookie in baseball history to hit 40 or more home runs. The only rookie with more is Mark McGwire, who hit 49 in 1987. The Yankees have 20 games left this season, so Judge would need to hit eight more round-trippers to tie McGwire for the all-time rookie record.

It’s not likely, but it’s also not out of the question. During a blazing hot streak from April 9 to May 3 earlier this season, Judge hit 13 home runs in 20 games. Five weeks later, he had another hot stretch from June 10 to June 30 during which he hit nine homers in 20 games. If Judge can put together a third hot stretch like either one of those, he would get to 50 dingers in his rookie year, putting him in uncharted territory for a first-year player.

Anyone who saw Judge in the Home Run Derby knows he has a chance if he gets hot. He crushed the competition in the Derby, taking out Justin Bour in the first round, Cody Bellinger in the second round and Miguel Sano in the finals. Along the way, Judge hit multiple 500-foot homers and he made it look easy.

Judge has terrific natural strength and the ability to square up a baseball, but he also has good timing when it comes to the era he’s playing in. Home runs are being hit at a higher rate this year than any season before. There have been plenty of suggestions of a juiced ball, including articles at The Ringer and FiveThirtyEight that have looked into this theory in great detail.

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Of course, Judge often hits his dingers so far it wouldn’t seem to matter if the ball is juiced. He hits plenty of “no-doubters.” According to ESPN, Judge has 13 homers in that classification, along with seven in the “just enough” category. It’s the “just enough” home runs that a juiced ball could help become home runs rather than long fly balls.

As it happens, when it comes to the ball potentially being juiced, Mark McGwire’s rookie year of 1987 is just as suspicious as this season. When McGwire hit his 49 big flies in 1987, baseballs were flying out of the park at an unprecedented rate. Looking back, many baseball fans feel the balls were juiced that year.

Not only did McGwire hit 49 home runs as a rookie in 1987, but there were plenty of other home run anomalies. Fellow rookie Matt Nokes hit 32 dingers and never had more than 24 in any other season. Wade Boggs hit 24 home runs that year, which was more than double the second-most homers he ever hit in a season. Wally Joyner hit 34 long balls in 149 games, an average of one every 4.4 games. Over the rest of his career, he hit one home run every 11.7 games. Brook Jacoby, Larry Sheets and Mike Pagliarulo all hit 30-plus homers.

The 1987 season was an anomaly for the 1980s. After the 1987 season, home runs went back to normal for the next decade. The rate of home runs per plate appearance for 1987 would fit in nicely with the high-offense era that stared in the mid-1990s and it wasn’t until 1996 that the home run rate topped the 1987 season.

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We don’t yet know if this season will be an anomaly. The home run rate has risen for three straight years. Last year’s rate was the highest ever and this year’s will top that. It will be interesting to see if the rate comes back down next year or continues to stay elevated. In the meantime, good for Aaron Judge for punishing the baseball, juiced or not, at a rate rarely accomplished by a rookie.