Aaron Judge downplays his Triple Crown chase

BOSTON – Aaron Judge, considered by many scouts a five-tool player from his time roaming center field in college at Fresno State, isn’t just making a run at the American League home run record with his historic 2022 season.

He’s also put himself in position to become the AL’s first Triple Crown winner since 2012 and just the league’s second since 1967.

But Judge expressed about a much enthusiasm for that topic as he does his ever-growing home run total, which increased to 57 Tuesday night after blasting two in the Yankees’ 7-6 victory over the Red Sox.

“Pretty special,” Judge said of the Triple Crown. “But I think I’m a long ways away from that so we don’t need to talk about that.”

Not all that long of a way.

Judge, after going 3-for-4 Tuesday, raised his batting average to .310, which ranks him fourth in the AL and certainly close enough to the leader, Luis Arraez of the Twins, who came into Wednesday hitting .319.

Judge entered Wednesday with those 57 homers – 22 clear of his next closest league pursuer (Mike Trout) – and an AL-best 123 RBIs, which is 12 more than Jose Ramirez of the Guardians.

“Yeah, some great guys have done it,” Judge said in general terms of the meaning of winning a Triple Crown, at the same time mentioning the last to do it, Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera.

Judge then quickly downplayed the notion with his “long ways” comment, though one thing he did not downplay was having a batting average over .300 this late in the season.

Judge, the runaway favorite to win the AL MVP and a free-agent-to-be after the season, has never hit .300 in a season, his best year in that department coming in 2021 when he hit .287 with 39 homers, 98 RBIs and a .916 OPS (he hit .284 in his AL Rookie of the Year season in 2017, adding 52 homers, 114 RBIs and a 1.049 OPS).

“That's always … as a kid, you look up and you see Albert Pujols hitting .330 every year and consistently put up the RBI numbers and stuff like that,” Judge said. “So, for me, grading the hitter has always been about average. I might be a little old-school, but can you hit or can you hit? It’s always been a goal of mine to try and get to that point and do that.”

Focusing on batting average puts Judge in stark contrast to many members of the Yankees’ influential analytics department that by and large does  not hold that statistic in high regard. Regardless, Judge, like many big-leaguers, still see hitting for a high average as part of the composite of being, using a phrase the outfielder has used many times, “a complete hitter.”

Plenty of complete hitters, of course, have never won a Triple Crown. A rare accomplishment to be sure but not one Aaron Boone sees as being out of reach.

“I’m not going to put anything past what he’s doing,” Boone said before Wednesday night’s game.

Complicating matters – not only for Judge’s pursuit of having the league’s top batting average but also whatever his final home run total turns out to be – is the careful way most teams have been pitching him. Judge did get his share of cracks Tuesday night, and produced three hits, but he was intentionally walked for an MLB-leading 16th time in the 10th inning (he would score on Gleyber Torres’ bases-clearing double that gave the Yankees a 7-4 lead). Five of those intentional walks came in his previous seven games.

“I try not to think about it. I'm so focused on what I got to do in the box, and I can't be thinking about if guys are pitching to me or not pitching to me,” Judge said. “Certain situations when I'm hitting, you can kind of see maybe they're pitching around you, but I still gotta stay locked in on my approach. If I start thinking about, ‘Am I going to get walked here, are they going to pitch around me?’ then it's just going to take me right out of what I’m trying to do at the plate.”