Yankees edge Red Sox as Aaron Judge ends 16-game home run drought with grand slam to cap five-run seventh
Aaron Judge #99 of the Yankees celebrates his seventh inning grand slam home run against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Friday, Sep. 13, 2024. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Aaron Judge professed to not know he was in the longest homerless streak of his career.
“Was it 16 games?” Judge asked after hitting a go-ahead grand slam in the seventh inning of the Yankees’ 5-4 win over the Red Sox on Friday night. “It’s just another day.”
But Clarke Schmidt didn’t hear Judge say that, so he unwittingly shattered the facade minutes later. “Judge, he’s very aware of stuff like that,” he said excitedly. “I think this might be the most memorable [team] win of my career so far here. I think the magnitude of that homer, the grand slam, guys are grinding . . . It was really special.”
That paints a pretty clear picture of Judge — the man who makes the miraculous feel mundane. But even those who are used to his heroics had to rise to attention Friday.
With the Yankees trailing the Red Sox by three runs and the bases loaded in the seventh inning at the Stadium, Judge strode to the plate among cacophonous chants of “M-V-P!”
The first pitch from Cam Booser hit the dirt. The second erroneously was called a ball.
And the third? The third sent the Stadium rattling to the studs in that all-consuming way that tells you the playoffs are coming.
“Jazz [Chisholm Jr.] came up to me after Judge hit the homer . . . and he was like, ‘This is pretty sick,’ ” Aaron Boone said. The game “felt a little bigger. There’s those games now and then throughout the season . . . You walk out there on a Friday night, big opponent, it felt like that way a little bit like that from the jump energy-wise.”
It gave the AL East-leading Yankees a three-game lead over the Orioles with 14 games to play.
The Yankees (86-62) trailed 4-0 before Anthony Volpe and Alex Verdugo worked back-to-back walks off Zack Kelly to lead off the seventh, with Verdugo coming back from an 0-and-2 count. Gleyber Torres singled home the first run and Alex Cora summoned Booser to face Juan Soto, who walked on four pitches. That brought up Judge, who got a belt-high fastball and hit a 369-foot laser to left to give the Yankees the lead.
The lights flashed, the crowd went berserk and the MVP chants didn’t settle until Judge obliged them with a curtain call. It was his 52nd homer of the season and his eighth career grand slam, and he’s up to an MLB-leading 130 RBIs.
“I was going crazy,” said Schmidt, who was in the trainer’s room. “Anyone who was in the general vicinity of the training room definitely heard me . . . Words can’t describe how cool that was.”
Luke Weaver allowed one hit and struck out five in the final two innings for his second save.
When Judge hit two home runs on Aug. 25, it gave him 45 in his last 94 games, but he then went 74 plate appearances before hitting another. Before going 2-for-3 with a walk Friday, he had gone 12-for-58 in the previous 16 games. He had four RBIs, 13 walks and 21 strikeouts, compiling a .207/.352/.259 slash line.
Never once did Boone worry. Neither did Judge. “That’s who he is,” Boone said. “He’s as good as I’ve ever seen with dealing with all that is the season — the ups and downs of it. He doesn’t get on the roller-coaster ride.”
Shortly before the game, the Yankees learned they wouldn’t be facing Tanner Houck, who was scratched because of shoulder fatigue, and instead would be going up against rookie and former Yankees prospect Richard Fitts, who allowed no runs, two hits and three walks in five innings in his second MLB start.
With two outs in the sixth, Masataka Yoshida blasted a cutter that got way too much of the plate, sending it 408 feet to right-center for a two-run homer. The Red Sox took a 4-0 lead against Mark Leiter Jr. in the seventh as Triston Casas singled and Trevor Story parked a lifeless cutter over the wall in right-center.
No matter, Judge had a slump to bust. Not that he knew that (allegedly).
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said to chuckles. “I’m trying to hit the baseball.”
He succeeded, and with one swing of the bat, made the Bronx sound, and feel, like October.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
