What's going on? Another homerless game!
Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees walks back to the dugout after striking out during the seventh inning against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, Sep. 24, 2022. Credit: Jim McIsaac
We’ve officially reached the stage of the Roger Maris chase at which Aaron Judge goes four games without hitting a home run and everyone wonders if something’s wrong.
How could it be that the Yankees went deep three times in Saturday’s 7-5 victory over the Red Sox — including career No. 4 for Oswaldo Cabrera! — and Judge came up empty again?
But this isn’t an unusual occurrence, even for Judge, who drilled No. 60 to tie Babe Ruth last Tuesday. He’s had homerless streaks of at least four games 10 times this season — those still are ridiculously short stretches, by the way — with the longest being only nine games. Judge laughed back then when somebody referred to it as a “drought”; he was proved correct when he hit 14 in the next 25 games to go from 46 to 60.
Even Gleyber Torres, who smacked his 24th homer, has three home runs since Judge matched the Babe. The Red Sox also took Domingo German over the fence twice, which sort of felt like rubbing it in after Judge whiffed the previous inning.
So balls were flying all over the place in the Bronx on Saturday, a sunny but seasonably cool afternoon, and Judge didn’t reach the warning track (the one ball he put in play traveled 350 feet as a routine pop-up to centerfield). He went 0-for-3 with a walk and a pair of strikeouts, and as far as the Triple Crown watch goes, he dropped to second in batting average at .314. Boston’s Xander Bogaerts is at .315 and Minnesota’s Luis Arraez is at .313.
The suggestion that Judge is experiencing some kind of power outage is ludicrous. But the mounting pressure of Maris’ American League record of 61 weighing on him as each day passes without progress is very real, whether Judge or anyone else in pinstripes wants to admit it or not.
He’s only human, after all. And when a sellout crowd of 47,611 shows up Saturday primarily to see you hit a home run, on command, that’s an extraordinary burden to carry to the plate during those four or five trips.
Judge wasn’t available to the media Saturday for the second time in as many games, but that’s hardly unusual for a player who didn’t have much impact on the outcome. Given that he’s routinely talked with reporters for most of this week — and Judge is the Yankee who probably does the most postgame sessions during the course of the season — it’s understandable if he wanted a breather. Or to just concede the TV cameras to Harrison Bader (run-saving catch) and Anthony Rizzo (game-winning two-run homer).
As well-equipped as Judge may be to handle this pursuit of history, the harder you try to do something, the more difficult the task can become. There’s no way around that. When a stadium full of fans lets out a disappointed collective groan as a line drive dies on the outfield grass for a double, which happened twice this past week, Judge obviously is facing impossible expectations.
“This is the ultimate competition at the highest level,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Even for a guy that hits 60 home runs, he still doesn’t hit them every day. A lot of things have to line up to go deep, even for the best of the best. As long as he continues to take good at-bats and make good swing decisions, it’ll happen sooner rather than later.”
Before Saturday’s game, Boone repeatedly dismissed the idea that stalking Maris this past week has left Judge worn down, either physically or mentally. But that’s something to keep an eye on, and Judge is likely to DH in Sunday night’s series finale.
One thing we can rule out — it’s not as if pitchers have been afraid of throwing him strikes during this recent stretch.
Judge had plenty of chances Saturday. He saw a total of 22 pitches, and of the 14 strikes, he swung at 11 of them, fouling off eight.
In the first inning, Nick Pivetta went right at him with three consecutive fastballs. Judge fouled two straight back to the screen before taking strike three. We’ll put an asterisk next to one of the later strikes, however, as Judge failed to check his swing on a fastball way above the zone in the seventh and was rung up on appeal by first-base umpire Chris Conroy.
Judge was visibly annoyed by the call as he stormed away, and boos rained down from the stands. He doesn’t typically show that much irritation with the umpires, but the stakes clearly are elevated these days, even though the Yankees have all but wrapped up the AL East (the magic number is down to three with 11 games remaining).
Maybe Judge isn’t doing anything different, but it was interesting to see the fans switch it up later in Saturday’s game.
Previously in the week, the crowd had gone from excited chatter to almost complete silence when the opposing pitcher went into his delivery, creating an eerie, unfamiliar stillness right as the ball was released.
This time the fans tried a different strategy. Already on their feet from the moment Judge walked toward the plate, they actually started cheering louder in anticipation. It was as if everyone was trying to compel history to happen, to give Judge a little extra Bronx boost. Maybe it will work Sunday night.
“Obviously, we all want him to do it here, and how special it would be to do it here in this stadium,” Rizzo said. “We’ll see.”
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
