Yankees slugger Aaron Judge ends 'drought' with 47th homer
Aaron Judge #99 of the Yankees follows through on his third inning home run against the New York Mets at Yankee Stadium on Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Aaron Judge broke into a smile at the question about ending his “home run drought.”
“Home run drought? I didn’t know that. That’s news to me,” Judge said after hitting his MLB-leading 47th homer in the Yankees’ 4-2 victory over the Mets on Monday night at the Stadium. He had gone homerless in nine games since Aug. 12 and was 4-for-31 with 13 strikeouts since that game.
“I don’t really worry about that,'' he added. "I was just happy to barrel something up and add to the lead against one of the best pitchers in the game.”
That pitcher was Max Scherzer, against whom Judge hit a homer in the 2018 All-Star Game in Washington but otherwise was 2-for-10 with no homers and six strikeouts in his career.
After striking out swinging at a slider in the first inning, Judge came up in the third inning and sent a 96-mph fastball well over the rightfield wall for a 2-0 lead.
“That’s what it’s all about,” Judge said of matching wits with Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young Award winner. “That’s one of the reasons why I love this game is the little chess match you get to play with the pitcher, and the pitcher and the catcher. And you get a future Hall of Famer like that you get to do that with, it’s electric. You have the crowd on their feet every pitch, right along with you. It’s fun. I look back on moments like that.”
Judge added a single in the seventh against Scherzer to complete a 2-for-4 night.
“I don’t think he’s been that far off, it’s just been missing a handful of pitches here over the last week that he normally does damage with,” Aaron Boone said. “Tonight, he strikes out in his first at-bat, but really good to see him stick one like that, a no-doubter, 110 [mph] the other way, and it’s like, ‘Oh, there’s Aaron.’ And then just missed another one [a flyout to the warning track in right in the fifth]. Good to see him get some results, but with that said, I haven’t felt like he’s been that far off from what we’ve seen all year.”
German shines
Domingo German was mostly terrific in outdueling Scherzer, allowing two runs (one earned) and four hits in 6 1/3 innings in which he struck out three and did not walk a batter. The runs came on Daniel Vogelbach’s two-run homer in the seventh, which occurred after rookie Oswaldo Cabrera dropped Pete Alonso’s pop-up in short right.
The righthander took a 104-mph ground shot off his right calf off the bat of James McCann in the sixth inning, the reason German hobbled into the clubhouse afterward.
“It got me on the calf, but I think it hit the muscle,” he said through his interpreter. “It’s a little tight but I think I should be fine in a couple of days.”
German earned the victory, which improved him to 2-2 with a 3.89 ERA in seven starts.
“He fills up the strike zone,” Boone said. “Fastball, changeup, curveball, I thought he had them all going. He was dictating counts and was unpredictable with his three pitches.”
Effross to the IL
The Yankees received a bit more on the adversity front when reliever Scott Effross, pretty good since being acquired at the trade deadline from the Cubs, was put on the injured list with a right shoulder strain. Righthander Clarke Schmidt, who has had trouble sticking in the big leagues this season despite being effective when given opportunities — he has been a victim of having options while some others are out of them — was recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, where he has been stretched out as a starter.
Boone said he could see using Schmidt in a variety of roles — everything from spot starting to middle relief and even, if the situation called for it, closing.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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