Aaron Judge steals a home run, then hits his 40th
The Yankees' Aaron Judge gestures as he runs home on his two-run home run against the Royals during the third inning of an MLB game at Yankee Stadium on Friday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
A single leap . . .
. . . and a mighty swing.
That’s how Aaron Judge followed up his walk-off home run in the ninth inning Thursday during the early innings of Friday night’s Yankees-Royals game in the Bronx.
The Yankees superstar scaled the right-centerfield fence to rob the first batter of the game of a home run.
Two innings later, Judge cracked his MLB-best 40th home run, a 449-foot two-run shot into the left-centerfield bleachers off lefthander Kris Bubic that gave the Yankees a 3-0 lead.
It was Judge's seventh homer in his last eight games and 10th in his last 13. It gave him 39 homers and 83 RBIs in his last 85 games.
Judge became the third Yankee to hit 40 home runs by July 29. Babe Ruth hit 41 by that date in 1928 and Roger Maris hit 40 by July 29, 1961.
Judge had the final swing of Thursday’s 1-0 victory with his ninth-inning game-ender.
It took just four pitches on Friday for Judge to hear the “MVP” chants again from the Yankee Stadium crowd.
Judge used his entire 6-7 frame to steal a home run from Kansas City leadoff man MJ Melendez. He fought off two tykes with gloves who tried to catch the ball in the stands and was able to hold onto the ball in the tip of his glove after crashing to the warning track.
By midway through the game, though, Judge’s heroics weren’t enough, as the Royals scored five times in the fifth off Gerrit Cole to take a 5-3 lead.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
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