Yankees Slugger on Incredibly Historic List Entering Series with Seattle Mariners

As the New York Yankees try to wrap up the American League East title this year, slugger Aaron Judge has put himself in truly historic company.
New York Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge (99) celebrates while running the bases after hitting a grand slam home run during the seventh inning against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Sept 13.
New York Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge (99) celebrates while running the bases after hitting a grand slam home run during the seventh inning against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Sept 13. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

The New York Yankees enter play on Tuesday night at 87-63 on the season. With 12 games left on the schedule, they are 3.0 games up on the Baltimore Orioles in the American League East and 0.5 games up on the Cleveland Guardians for the best record in the AL.

If they finish with the top seed in the looming American League playoffs, they'll get a first-round bye and homefield advantage throughout October.

The Yankees will travel to Seattle to start a three-game series with the Mariners on Tuesday. Both teams will be playing with desperation as the Yankees want to wrap up the division crown and the M's want to keep their fading playoff hopes alive. Seattle is 4.0 games back in the American League West and 2.0 games back in the Wild Card.

As the series gets set to begin, Yankees star Aaron Judge is in some truly historic company.

Per @StatsCentre:

After a career long 17-game drought, Aaron Judge's path to 60 home runs in a season has regained steam thanks to 2 over his last 3. Overall, the 9th year @Yankees superstar has put forth an elite slugging career as his percentage of .602 ranks behind only 6 on this legendary list

The entire list of people ahead of Judge is Hall of Famers or future Hall of Famers. Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg and Todd Helton are all in while Albert Pujols will get in immediately when eligible.

Judge is hitting .321 this season and is likely to win the American League MVP Award. He's got 53 home runs and 132 RBI. He'll make a very difficult out for M's pitching all week long.

First pitch on Tuesday is 9:40 p.m. ET.

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Brady Farkas

BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady.