Yankees in awe of Aaron Judge's hot start to season
The Yankees' Aaron Judge hits a single during the third inning of a game against the Cleveland Guardians on Tuesday in Cleveland. Credit: AP/David Dermer
Clarke Schmidt said that, on occasion, he and his teammates find themselves in a desensitized state when it comes to watching Aaron Judge night after night.
“You start to become numb to it, for sure,” Schmidt said.
The pitcher laughed.
“But there’s always a point in the dugout where we’re looking at each other like, ‘This guy’s crazy,’ ” continued Schmidt, speaking after the Yankees’ 5-1 victory over the Guardians at Progressive Field on Wednesday. “It just seems like he’s playing in a different league than the rest of us. That feeling, almost like, you feel like just being able to watch him in the dugout and being on the same team, you’re just kind of in awe of him.”
The kind of start the two-time AL MVP is off to will do that.
Judge, who won the second of those two awards last season, came into Thursday, an off day for the Yankees, with video-game numbers: .415 batting average with a .513-on-base percentage, .734 slugging percentage and a 1.247 OPS. He has seven homers and 26 RBIs. Though he hasn’t homered in his last seven games, he’s 12-for-28 (.429) in that stretch. After going 4-for-4 Tuesday night, Judge tripled in his first at-bat Wednesday, singled in his second and walked in his third plate appearance.
“I'm just surprised,” Carlos Rodon said with a smile after picking up the victory with seven terrific innings, “when he [makes an] out.”
Teammates being in awe of Judge, of course, is not new. That’s happened with regularity since his AL Rookie of the Year season in 2017 when he hit a then-rookie record 52 homers.
But now, with Judge, who turns 33 on Saturday, in his 10th season, there’s an added layer to it.
“I just say this is a real-life superhero in terms of baseball. You just don’t see this,” hitting coach James Rowson told Newsday after Wednesday’s game. “We’re so fortunate because we’re literally watching history every day. There’s going to come a day where we look back on this time and realize that we’re probably watching the best player to ever swing a bat. And if he’s not the best, he’s definitely arguably in that conversation with some people. Because you can only put a handful of guys in the class of what he’s doing up there. I would argue that what he’s doing, with how pitching is nowadays, it’s almost like you can’t compare it to anybody else.”
Rowson, in his second season as Yankees hitting coach, has a different perspective than most when it comes to Judge, who was drafted in 2013.
Rowson served as the organization’s minor-league hitting coordinator from 2014-16, meeting and working with Judge almost from Day 1 of his professional career. After multiples stops with other organizations — including serving as the Twins' hitting coach from 2017-19 and the Marlins' bench coach from 2020-22 — Rowson returned to the Yankees in 2024.
“The experience has made him a different hitter,” Rowson said. “He’s learned so much over the years from then to now. Like great hitters do . . . he’s definitely a different guy because he’s grown. You watch him, he’s different from a year ago till now. He never stops learning.”
Rodon first saw Judge on June 29, 2017, at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago when the lefthander was with the White Sox. He struck out Judge in his first at-bat and got him to ground to short in his second at-bat of what would be a 12-3 Yankees victory.
“You can tell how he’s grown as a hitter,” Rodon said. “The more at-bats he gets, the better he gets. He just keeps getting better every year.”
Rowson said that has been the result of the “learning” he referenced.
“He’s always downloading information,” Rowson said. “Last year information maybe that he didn’t have — and it could be really small, maybe something against a particular pitcher or a against a particular style of pitcher or against a particular team. And he downloaded that, so he’s got that in his mind now, so you’re not able to continue to get him out the same way. You just have to do something different to get him out.”
Rowson paused.
“You don’t see guys with this incredible power and then who can consistently show you they’re such a good hitter. It’s that combination,” he said. “You’ve seen power before, and we’ve seen good hitters. We rarely see this combination.”
Aaron Judge is well on his way to the best April (plus some March games) of his career.
BA OBP SLG OPS
Career Avg. .292 .403 .578 .981
2025 .415 .513 .734 1.247
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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