New York Yankees: Aaron Judge is not in a slump
Let’s go back to September 20, 2022. New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge belted his 60th home run of the season that day, making him just the sixth player in MLB history to reach that milestone. It was just a matter of time until he tied, and surpassed, Roger Maris for both the Yankees team record and the American League record.
Since then? Judge had not homered in the next seven games, leading people to automatically assume that he is in a slump because the power has not been there.
Maybe if they pitched to New York Yankees’ slugger Aaron Judge…
It did not help that this streak had tied his longest stretch of the season as he did not homer between April 14 and April 21. In fact, Judge had just one homer between April 8 and April 21, a true power outage.
But this was not a matter of Judge wilting under the pressure. Instead, teams just were not pitching to him. While one can argue that he is expanding the zone as he has struck out eight times in his 31 plate appearances, he had also drawn 12 walks. He was not getting much of anything to hit.
It is easy to understand why that would have been the case. No one wanted to be Tracy Stallard and be remembered strictly for giving up that 61st homer. Pitchers are going to do their best to avoid giving him anything that he can drive to tie, or break, that record so that they do not live in infamy.
Judge had still been hitting the ball hard with a 102.8 MPH average exit velocity when making contact. His .969 OPS in that span was still impressive. It was just a matter of his not having put anything over the fence to make history.
And that happened on Wednesday night. Tim Mayza left a pitch in the zone that Judge sent into the Blue Jays bullpen for his 61st homer of the season. He has now tied Roger Maris for the American League record and has a week to get just one more. In the meanwhile, any rumors about a slump are no more.
dark. Next. Cashman cannot afford not to pay Aaron Judge
It was easy to think that Aaron Judge is in a slump because he has not homered since September 20. So much for that thought.