Yankees' Aaron Judge could be looking at another October fall
Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge walks back to the dugout at the end of the top of the first inning of ALDS Game 1 in Toronto on Saturday. Credit: AP
Aaron Judge’s regular season should earn him a third MVP (in our opinion), and he’s hitting .444 with a 1.024 OPS in these playoffs, both tops on the Yankees.
But in October, for baseball’s highest-profile star (non-Ohtani division) and future resident of Monument Park, none of that is enough.
If the Blue Jays win Tuesday night’s Game 3 to complete a sweep of the Division Series, denying Judge a postseason signature moment yet again, the glaring hole in his pinstriped legacy will only grow larger.
Because once the Yankees’ postseason run is finished, so is Judge’s perennial shot at authoring his own epic October. And if it doesn’t happen this year, after he continued his reign as the most feared hitter on the planet for six months, then when?
This is all relative, of course. He’s reached base in more than half of his plate appearances this postseason, so it’s not as if Judge has been a 6-7 doughnut in the No. 2 spot. His stats just aren’t big enough for a Yankees team that has desperately needed some of that MVP mojo to save them.
Judge enters Tuesday night’s game with seven singles and a double through his first five games, respectable production for a .205 hitter in his previous 15 postseason series dating to 2017 (45-for-220). But any opposing manager would sign on for Judge going station-to-station rather than jogging around the bases, and his two RBIs — fewer than what Blue Jays infielder Ernie Clement delivered with a pair of swings in Sunday’s 13-7 blowout — reveal the minimal impact.
Judge even caught a break with his first RBI when diving Red Sox leftfielder Jarren Duran let a sinking liner clang off his glove in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series.
And it’s not as if these moments don’t keep finding Judge. On Saturday, with the Yankees trailing 2-0 in the sixth inning, he batted with the bases loaded and none out. That happened to him only twice during the regular season, and he responded with a two-run single and a grand slam. In his career, in those spots, Judge is 6-for-15 (.400) with two homers and 21 RBIs in the regular season.
October is a different beast, of course. And during this pivotal Game 1 moment, with a packed Rogers Centre at full roar, Judge battled Blue Jays ace Kevin Gausman for seven pitches, then did him a favor by waving at a full-count, dirt-ball splitter in the other batter’s box for strike three.
Gausman later said he was fine walking Judge. The Yankees then scored their lone run (of the 10-1 rout) when Cody Bellinger followed with a four-pitch walk.
On Sunday, Judge reached base four times, walking twice with a pair of singles, one of which cut the Yankees’ deficit to 13-3 in the seventh inning. His Toronto counterpart, $500 million slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr., delivered the franchise’s first postseason grand slam during a six-run fourth inning that effectively ended the game. Guerrero is 6-for-9 with a pair of homers and six RBIs in leading the Jays to a 2-0 lead in the series.
“Just trying to do my job — get on base and drive guys in when they’re out there,” Judge said Sunday night. “Not trying to do too much. What’s been great for us all year long is just kind of pass the baton.”
That doesn’t work when no one else is there to grab it. Bellinger followed Judge’s infield single Sunday with a two-run homer, but it was only the Yankees’ third home run in five playoff games (Anthony Volpe and Ben Rice have the others) for a team that led the majors with 274 — 30 more than the next-closest Dodgers.
Judge can talk about all that baton-passing, but the Blue Jays have outhomered the Yankees 8-1, and that trend can’t continue for them to have any hope in the Bronx.
“You still manufacture runs,” said Giancarlo Stanton, who is batting .150 (3-for-20) with a pair of doubles and two RBIs. “But if they’re hitting [homers] and we’re not, more often than not, we’re not gonna win.”
Without Judge mashing again on the Bronx stage, a comeback in this series would seem unlikely. But after they got by on the savvy Gausman and the element of surprise with rookie Trey Yesavage, whose over-the-top splitter resulted in Sunday’s 11-strikeout performance in 5 1⁄3 hitless innings, it will be interesting to see how the Blue Jays choose to handle Judge going forward when they don’t have a big lead.
One thing’s for sure: Judge must be dying to do some damage. And with the Yankees already facing their third elimination game this month, now would be a good time for him to shatter the narratives that haunt him every October.
When Judge botched Daulton Varsho’s second-inning double down the rightfield line Sunday for an error that put Varsho on third with none out, who didn’t immediately flash back to his dropped fly ball that helped bounce the Yankees from the World Series last year?
But now Judge has another opportunity to alter the course of his playoff history with one swing as well as save the Yankees’ season in the process.
“We’ve been playing with our backs up against the wall all year long,” he said. “So it’s nothing new for us.”
It’s well past time for Judge to shed some of that old October baggage, too.
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.
