Every day, or almost every day, Aaron Judge does something noteworthy, though not unprecedented. A towering home run (or two). An intentional walk with (ha!) two outs and the bases empty in the second inning. A record tied. Another record broken. Gaping has become a daily occurrence for the past five months.
And so his teammates and manager have been asked, almost daily, to describe what they are witnessing from the extraordinary hitter. At this point, the questions are met with disbelieving looks. Formulating an answer has become an increasingly difficult mental exercise for the members of the New York Yankees.
“I'm speechless, honestly,” manager Aaron Boone said Sunday after Judge hit home runs 50 and 51 in a win over the Colorado Rockies. “I'm just speechless with what he's doing. We're jumping on the bandwagon.” [to Washington]”I need to get out the thesaurus and get to work.”
Judge has 51 homers in 130 games, putting him on pace to break the AL record he set in 2022 of 62. He’s hitting .333 with a .465 on-base percentage and .732 slugging percentage while playing center field nearly every day. He leads the majors in fWAR. At age 32, he’s better than ever.
“I guess we're at the part of the season where we're in the right rhythm,” Boone joked last week. “Look, anything is possible with him. I think he just wants to be great every day and help us win. So nothing would surprise me.”
All of this success comes despite a season start in which Judge hit .178 with a .674 OPS and four homers in 27 games. He has since blossomed into a pounding machine, batting .377/.506/.844 with 47 homers and 109 RBIs in 102 games. On Monday, he added a defensive gem: a leaping catch at the wall to rob an extra-base hit and turn a double play against the Washington Nationals.
“It's tough,” said Gerrit Cole, one of baseball's most thoughtful and eloquent stars, when asked to describe Judge's four-month onslaught last Thursday.
Cole had just watched Judge hit his 48th home run and draw his 16th intentional walk in a win against the Cleveland Guardians.
“It's very impressive because when you look around the league and you see guys with high batting averages — .330, .340, .350, the guys of the past — there's a fair amount of bunts and infield hits. This guy is .330 and I'm not sure he's had an infield hit all year. It's all doubles and home runs.
“So, it's like there's no one who compares to him. Certainly not walking around right now, outside. [Barry] Bonds. I mean, it's just… what a wonderful experience to have him on my team and be around him.”
Earlier in the afternoon, Giancarlo Stanton, one of the few people who knows what it's like to hit home runs at that rate, offered a contemporary measure of his teammate's tear.
“He's playing a video game,” said Stanton, who hit 59 homers for the Miami Marlins in 2017. “We're all here, trying hard.”
Three days later, Marcus Stroman decided that video games were a thing of the past.
“It's maybe even better than the video game numbers,” Stroman said. “You know, they say, 'Oh, this guy is like a video game.' It's better than that.
“I'm just trying to be present and take it all in, to be honest with you, because it's something you may never see again. I'm just trying to witness it and really feel it in the moment.”
During a game last week, Stroman stood alongside fellow starter Nestor Cortes in the Yankees dugout and marveled at Judge's skills.
“He was like, 'Oh, this guy is amazing,'” Cortes recalled. “And I was like, 'Yeah, I saw this in 2022 all year. It seemed like every time he came up to bat it was a home run or a walk, and that's exactly what's happening now.'”
The reality is that Judge is better than he was in 2022 and has reached another level in August. In 21 games this month, he is hitting .425 with 12 homers and a 1.544 OPS, all tops in the majors. Of 181 qualified players, 169 have an OPS at or below Judge’s .986 slugging percentage. He has hit four homers in his last five games, seven in his last seven games and nine in his last 11 games.
With his explosion, he became the first player to have 50 homers, 120 RBIs and 100 walks before September. He is the fifth player in history to hit 50 homers in three different seasons. With a month and a half to go, he is on pace to become just the third player with multiple 60-homer seasons. There are no signs that he — or the questions — will slow down.
“It's hard to understand,” Boone said. “We talk about it a lot, what he's doing, because I get asked about it all the time. Not just at these press conferences, but when people come up to you. I'm at a loss for words to say that you're witnessing something great. You really are. He's just better than everyone.”
