Aaron Judge’s ideal season turned into a spooky October

The MLB playoffs are tough. Facing the best teams left in the league means facing some of the best pitchers. From facing Seattle’s Robbie Ray and Luis Castillo to Houston’s Justin Verlander and Ryan Pressly, among others, these are some incredibly tough pitchers to face. With that in mind, it makes sense that Aaron Judge struggled in the ALDS and ALCS.

So what happened to the powerful Aaron Judge in the postseason?

In the ALDS against Seattle, Judge hit just .200 with two homers. In the ALCS versus Houston, Judge hit .063 without a homer or driving in a run. But why is this surprising to people? Because he hit 62 homers in the regular season? Let’s take a look at who he hit homers off of during the 2022 regular season.

Let’s face it: 62 home runs is a lot and impressive against anyone, but Judge only hit seven homers off an All-Star pitcher, and 19 homers off a team heading to the playoffs. Seven home runs from a pitcher who isn’t an All-Star. Think about that, from dominating the regular season off non-All-Star pitchers to facing some of the best pitchers in the league.

It makes sense that Aaron Judge struggled this postseason. Throughout the regular season, the New York Yankees faced the Seattle Mariners six times, all in August. During this time, Judge hit three homers (one against Marco Gonzales, Ryan Borucki, and Penn Murfee). During the other three games, Judge faced Logan Gilbert, Luis Castillo, Andres Munoz, and Paul Sewald. During the regular season, the Yankees faced the Astros seven times. Judge only hit two homers in these games, one off Seth Martinez and the other off Brandon Bielak. During those other games, the Yankees faced Luis Garcia, Rafael Montero, Christian Javier, Ryne Stanek, Hector Neris, Framber Valdez, Justin Verlander, and Jose Urquidy. These are extremely talented pitchers, all of which are difficult to hit home runs off of.

Regarding the boos at Yankee Stadium towards Judge, it just doesn’t make sense. Judge is still a very talented baseball player, but how did the fans expect him to dominate the postseason like the regular season? 55 of his 62 home runs were from non-All-Star pitchers and 43 came from a non-playoff team.

Playoff pitching is different, it’s much harder to face, and it includes some of the best pitchers in the game. The Yankees relied too much on Judge in the postseason to get the offense going, and unfortunately for them, it didn’t work.