Aaron Judge on record pace after hitting 50th, 51st HRs - ESPN

NEW YORK — Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hit his 50th and 51st home runs of the season in Sunday's 10-3 win over the Colorado Rockies, putting him on pace to break his own American League home run record.

Home run No. 50 came off a 0-2 changeup from Austin Gomber in the first inning; it was Judge's 18th homer in the first inning this season, matching Alex Rodriguez (2001) for the major league record.

Judge hit No. 51 in the seventh inning, following a solo homer from Juan Soto with one of his own. Giancarlo Stanton hit a homer in the next at-bat as the sluggers went back-to-back-to-back to give New York a 7-3 lead.

Judge, who flew out in the second and walked in the fifth, took a curtain call after his second home run of the day.

«I didn't want to come out until [manager Aaron Boone] told me. He kind of gave me the look and the nod, so I went out there,» Judge said. «The fans are pumped up. We kind of hit a lull there in the game. We scored had the lead, they kind of came back. They were down one for a while and for us to explode there for a couple of runs, the fans were pumped up.»

Aaron Judge is tied with himself for the sixth most home runs in a single season before September. The Yankees still have five games remaining in August.

Judge homered for the seventh time in his last six games and for the 10th time in 13 games. He also has 47 homers in his last 102 games.

«It's unreal,» Stanton said. «He does something special every day.»

The two homers Sunday put Judge on pace to hit 63 this season, which would break his AL record of 62 set in 2022. Judge first reached the 50-homer threshold in his rookie year in 2017, when had 52.

Judge also became just the fifth player to hit 50 home runs in three different seasons, joining