Aaron Judge has New York Yankees scrambling for superlatives - ESPN
Every day, or close to it, Aaron Judge does something noteworthy, if not unprecedented. A towering home run — or two. An intentional walk with — gasp — two outs and the bases empty in the second inning. A record matched. Another record broken. Jaws dropping has become a daily occurrence going on five months.
And so his teammates and his manager have been asked, on an almost daily basis, to describe what they're witnessing from the extraordinary slugger. By this point, the questions are met with headshakes. Formulating an answer has become an increasingly difficult mental exercise for members of the New York Yankees.
«Running out of words, honestly,» manager Aaron Boone said Sunday after Judge clubbed home runs Nos. 50 and 51 in a win over the Colorado Rockies. «Just running out of words with what he's doing. We're getting on the train [to Washington]. I gotta get the thesaurus out and get to work.»
Judge has 51 home runs in 130 games, putting him on pace to break the American League record he set in 2022 of 62. He's batting .333 with a .465 on-base percentage and .732 slugging percentage while playing center field almost every day. He leads the majors in fWAR. At age 32, he's better than he's ever been.
«I guess we're on the on-pace portion of the season,» Boone joked last week. «Look, anything's possible with him. I think he just wants to be great every day and help us win. So, nothing would surprise me.»
All this success comes despite a start to the season that saw Judge batting .178 with a .674 OPS and four home runs in 27 games. Since then, he's become a pitch-mashing machine, slashing .377/.506/.844 with 47 home runs and 109 RBIs in 102 games. On Monday, he added a defensive gem: a leaping catch at the wall to rob