Inside The Pinstripes

Aaron Judge Ties Major League Lead in Home Runs As Hot Streak Continues

New York Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge hit his 12th home run of the season against the Baltimore Orioles, tied for the most homers in baseball this year

Max Goodman

Evan Habeeb-USA TODAY Sports

Just over one week ago, Aaron Judge admitted that he's been "terrible" at the plate.

At the time, the slugger was in the middle of a 2-for-24 stretch during the Yankees' homestand, lowering his average on the season from .291 to .245.

Since then, Judge has looked like one of the best hitters in the game. The right fielder is on a six-game hitting streak, batting .545 (12-for-22) with five home runs. 

His two-run blast on Sunday—in the third inning of a loss to the Orioles—was his 12th of the year, putting the slugger in a four-way tie for the most home runs in Major League Baseball.

"It's just been this last week, I feel like he's just really controlling the strike zone so well and that discipline is getting him into some good situations," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said after Sunday's loss. "When he does get a pitch right now, he's usually hitting it over the fence."

In New York's three-game series in Baltimore alone, Judge walloped four homers across three multi-hit games. It's the first time the slugger has gone deep in three consecutive games since he homered in five straight games last summer.

Judge is now back to batting .295 (39-for-132) on the season with 20 runs and 24 RBI. As his manager alluded to, it's the discipline to stay in the zone and take advantage of offerings left out over the plate that have made him so dangerous lately.  

"Staying aggressive in my zone. Not trying to expand too much," Judge explained on Saturday evening. "They're gonna flip an early curveball in there, try to get strike one, try to put a good swing on it. Especially if it's a fastball over the plate, take a hack at it. If it's in the zone, just try to do some damage. I think that's what's kind of helped me out so far."

With a dozen big flies as of Sunday night, Judge is tied with Ronald Acuña Jr., Shohei Ohtani and Mitch Haniger for the most home runs in baseball. No one else on the Yankees—except Giancarlo Stanton—has hit more than five homers thus far. Stanton has nine homers, but has been held out of the lineup for the last several days with left quad tightness.

The beauty of Judge's hot bat, to Boone, is that he's only beginning to find his groove at the plate. As the rest of the league has grown accustomed to seeing since Judge's historic rookie season in 2017, when the right fielder is healthy, there's plenty more where this came from.

"I still feel like there's even more in there for him though," Boone said. "That's the scary part. But it's definitely good to see him having these at-bats over and over again now."

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Max Goodman
MAX GOODMAN

Max Goodman covers the New York Yankees for Sports Illustrated and FanNation. Goodman has been on the Yankees beat for three seasons. He is also the publisher of Sports Illustrated and FanNation's Jets site, Jets Country. Before starting Inside The Pinstripes, Goodman attended Northwestern University and the Medill School of Journalism. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Broadcast Journalism and Master’s Degree in Sports Media, graduating in 2019. At school, Goodman was an anchor and reporter with NNN SportsNight and played on the club baseball team. While at Northwestern, Goodman interned with MLB.com as an associate reporter covering the Miami Marlins. He also interned with ESPN, working as an associate reporter on Mike Greenberg's Get Up. Goodman is from New York City. He grew up in Hell's Kitchen. Follow Goodman on Twitter @MaxTGoodman. You can connect with him via email by reaching out at maxgoodmansports@gmail.com.

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