Aaron Judge has been assaulting ballparks, baseballs and baseball history since 2017, and this season he’s continued to make his mark on the record books of both baseball and the Yankees.
On Sunday, Judge bashed his MLB-leading 50th and 51st home runs in a 10-3 blowout of the Colorado Rockies in the Bronx. That gave him his third 50-homer season and put him in the company of Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa, who all had four, and Alex Rodriguez, who had three, including one with the Yankees in 2007.
Judge was happy but not as caught up in the moment as everyone else.
“[It’s] a great accomplishment, but there’s more to be done,” said Judge. “This team [has] got a big mission in front of them, and I think we’re all focused on that right now.”
That mission is to win the club’s 28th World Series title, something it has not done since 2009. And after missing the playoffs last year after making the AL Championship Series for six consecutive years (2017 – 2022), Judge is doing everything he can to end the Yankees’ drought.
So far this season, he’s doing just that. He ranks in the top two in many categories including HRs (1st with 51), RBIs (1st with 122), OBP (1st at .465) and batting average (2nd at .333).
If Judge continues on this pace, he will hit 63 home runs, which will break his American League and NY Yankees single-season record of 62 that he set in 2022. However, with 47 home runs over his last 102 games, and with 31 games remaining, Judge could reach 65 HRs, only 8 shy of the Major League record set by Barry Bonds in 2001.
Judge now has 308 career home runs, which, according to Sarah Langs, is 29 more than any other player in his first 1,000 games (Judge has played in 964). That also places him seventh on the team’s all-time home run list. He trails Rodriguez (351), Yogi Berra (358), Joe DiMaggio (361), Lou Gehrig (493), Mickey Mantle (536) and Ruth (659).
“I try not to [think about the record],” Judge said. “I don’t think that really helps anybody if I try to go up there and hit homers. I got to this point just trying to be a good hitter and be a good teammate, so that’s what I’m gonna try to do. I feel like if I do that, we can look up at the end of the year and I think the numbers will be where they’re supposed to be.”
The number he’s more concerned with is 77, which is the Yankees’ total number of current wins. That’s one win behind the league-leading Dodgers and only one win ahead of the second-place Baltimore Orioles.
While the Yankees have assembled a modern-day version of “Murder’s Row” with Judge, Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton, Judge is shining brighter than his teammates and the majority of the players in the league.
And at only 32 years old, Aaron Judge should continue to make more history in the years to come.
