MILWAUKEE – A funny thing happened on Aaron Judge’s path to hitting a ton of home runs: batting averages and, second, historically distinct.
Judge spent most of the season threatening Roger Maris’ record of 61 home runs in a single season, set in 1961. With two home runs in Sunday’s 12 win -8 against the Milwaukee Brewers, Judge’s season total hit 59 – 20 more than any other smasher in the major leagues.
But as Judge, 30, has moved ahead on home turf for the second half of the season – 26 since the All-Star break in mid-July – he’s also climbed the AL batting rankings . With a torrential .491 batting clip (27 eats 55) this month, Judge has placed himself in a competitive position to claim three crowns, an impressive feat in which a batter led his tournament. himself on average hitting the ball, going home and running defeated.
With two and a half weeks remaining in the regular season, Judge holds a huge lead in both home runs and RBI The closest AL beater in home runs is Houston’s Yordan Alvarez, with 37 – 22 behind Judge – while Cleveland’s José Ramírez is second in the RBI, but his 112 is 15 behind Judge.
After collecting four hits on Sunday, The Judge finished in the third three-crown category. His .316 average was tied with Boston’s Xander Bogaerts for second in the AL, just behind Minnesota’s Luis Arráez, at 0.317.
“It was remarkable,” said Judge’s Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, later adding, “It was the greatest offensive season I’ve personally witnessed. I don’t know what else to say. Great.”
Three crowns is a rare achievement in US and National tournaments where a team of only 10 players takes up 12 crowns. The last person to achieve the feat – Miguel Cabrera, in 2012 – was the first to do so in more than four decades. This year, however, both leagues are likely to add another to the list: Judge and, to a lesser extent, Paul Goldschmidt of St. Louis Cardinals, who is second in the NL in batting average (.322), is third at home. ran (35) and placed second in the RBI (112).
“He was really amazing,” said Anthony Rizzo, the Yankees’ first hitter. Referring to Cabrera, Rizzo added, “Miggy was the last to do it and the numbers he came up with are astronomical and Aaron is blowing that up right now. We haven’t seen that in this game in a long time and for him to do it in this age of baseball is unbelievable. “
Judge’s previous career-high batting average was 0.287, and he’s hit a high of 0.280 just twice in his six seasons. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he never thought much of Judge winning the batting title, but he knows that Judge takes pride in hitting a high average. He added, “So when you consider what he’s doing and the person and his talent, it’s not surprising.”
When asked if he would ever win the batting title or three crowns among his dreams growing up, Judge laughed and said: “You set personal goals, especially as a kid. is a 10 year old child. You have dreams and aspirations of what you want to try to accomplish in Major League Baseball if you get there. But in the wildest of dreams, you never think it will come true. You hope, you pray, you work, but you never know if it will happen until it happens.”
When Cabrera took three crowns, Judge was a sophomore at Fresno State University, still a year away from being selected by the Yankees in the first round. His head coach at the time, Mike Batesole, showed the entire team a YouTube video of all 205 Cabrera hits. “It’s a long video,” Judge said with a laugh.
“It’s worth a look,” he continued. “He really honed home the way he made things so simple. He doesn’t try to exceed. He doesn’t try to do too much, especially with base-based players, you’ll see him poke a single shot into the right court and score two runs. He did the little things in the game and you do that over 162, you’re going to have a pretty good year. “
That’s exactly what Judge did in the ninth inning on Sunday. Earlier in the game, he helped the Yankees come back from a 4-1 deficit. In the third season, Judge detonates a submersible plane 414 feet from Brewers initiator Jason Alexander into the second deck on the right court. Four rounds later, Judge hit the ball further, 443 feet, but to the second deck on the left court. Perhaps too exasperated, Brewers pain reliever user Luis Perdomo swung his arm up shortly after Judge made contact.
As the Brewers tighten things up late, Judge delivers once more. As he strode to the plate in the ninth inning, Yankees fans at American Family Field chanted “MVP!” The referee blocked the first pitch he saw from Trevor Kelley’s side-injury medicine to the left court. The cheering crowd then sighed and clapped as the ball bounced in front of the wall for a double run. It was the last stroke in 4 days 5 days including walking and 4 RBI
After that, Judge said he wasn’t thinking about running home but driving the extra mile. Number 60 will have to wait another day – the Yankees’ next game on Tuesday, at home – but after all, Judge has more than one run in the record books underway.
“I understand that there will be a storyline over the next two weeks about who deserves the MVP,” Rizzo said, then alluding to the steroid trial that started in MLB. 20 years ago. “But this hasn’t been done in this era, someone after a clean 61 like this and no real question mark about what’s going on in the game.”
As he continued to make the case for his teammates, Rizzo mentioned Anaheim’s Shohei Ohtani, the two-way star, who unanimously won last year’s AL Player of the Year and was even better off the season. this award. “So it’s really impressive. It was really fun. I know there’s a debate about Ohtani and whatnot, but Judge, this is his season. He is having a special season. “
