New York Yankees: Aaron Judge illustrates Joey Gallo futility
New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge had a season for the ages in 2022.
If we exclude the Steroid Era, there have only been two seasons where a player hit 60+ homers since the beginning of Major League Baseball in 1871. Even with the Steroid Era, there have been five. Judge notching 62 homers is an incredible accomplishment by any measure. But when compared to Joey Gallo, his home run total is even more ridiculous.
Former New York Yankees teammates have vastly different seasons
There have been plenty of words written about Gallo and his struggles this season. He just was not a good fit with the Yankees, and while he has been better with the Dodgers, the overall numbers are still mediocre at best. Gallo has posted a .161/.281/.360 batting line in his 406 combined plate appearances, hitting 19 homers while drawing 55 walks, but also striking out 161 times.
But those numbers do not truly do justice to Gallo’s season. There is one statistic that does however – Judge has 62 homers on the year while Gallo has 56 HITS all season. He would need to somehow have a six hit game on Wednesday to have his total number of hits match Judge’s homers alone.
Needless to say, that is not going to happen. Gallo had a four hit game back on May 16, 2019, the only time he had more than three hits in a game in his career. In fact, he only has 16 games in his career with three or more hits. It’s just not going to happen.
Gallo has already had a statistically odd career. It took him over 1250 plate appearances to record his first sacrifice fly; his three sacrifice flies are a remarkably low total for such a fly ball oriented hitter. And now, he will finish a season where he was healthy and in the majors all year with fewer hits than Judge’s home run total.
New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge has had a phenomenal season. His 2022 campaign looks even better when compared to Joey Gallo.