Yankees' Aaron Judge hits 50th and 51st home runs of season in blowout win over Rockies
New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge follows through on his solo home during the first inning against the Colorado Rockies in an MLB baseball game at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
It’s hard to upstage another Aaron Judge milestone, but the Yankees did their best Sunday, and Judge was a part of that, too.
On a day in which Judge hit his 50th and 51st home runs, the Yankees smashed three homers in a span of five pitches and finished with five in a 10-3 win over the Rockies at Yankee Stadium.
After Colorado reliever Jeff Criswell recorded the first out of the seventh, Juan Soto blasted the first pitch he saw off the back wall of the Yankees’ bullpen for his 37th homer, a 418-foot shot that gave the Yankees a 5-3 lead. Mere seconds after Soto finished celebrating in the dugout, Judge drove the first pitch he saw 377 feet into the right-centerfield stands. And not long after Judge took a rare (and brief) curtain call, Giancarlo Stanton drove a 2-and-0 pitch 425 feet to centerfield onto the netting above Monument Park for his 23rd homer.
The Yankees hit three straight homers for the first time since Brett Gardner, DJ LeMahieu and Luke Voit did it on Sept. 17, 2020.
“I was pretty excited about Stanton. It’s very few times you see something like that,” Judge said. “Just the way he’s swinging the bat, we’re so lucky to have him back after his injury.”
Judge’s 431-foot two-run homer into the Rockies’ bullpen in the first inning — on an 0-and-2 changeup from lefthander Austin Gomber — made him the fifth player in MLB history with at least 50 home runs in at least three seasons, joining Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Alex Rodriguez.
It was Judge’s 18th first-inning homer this season, tying Rodriguez (2001) for the MLB single-season record. It also made him the first player in MLB history with at least 50 home runs, 120 RBIs (he has 122) and 100 walks (he has 106) before September, and he still has five more games before August ends.
“A great accomplishment, but there’s more to be done,” Judge said. “This team’s got a big mission in front of them and I think we’re focused on that right now.”
Judge has hit seven home runs in the last six games and nine in the last 10. In his last 94 games, he has a .382 batting average, 103 RBIs and 45 homers. That projects to 78 homers over 162 games; if he can maintain that pace, he will finish with 66 — four more than the American League record he set in 2022. Even the pace he has maintained over the Yankees’ 131 games would give him 63.
“It’s like a video game. It’s maybe even better than video game numbers,” winning pitcher Marcus Stroman said.
Added Aaron Boone, “Honestly, we’re just running out of words for what he’s doing. I got to get the thesaurus out and get to work because it is amazing.”
Sunday was the 12th time this season that Soto and Judge homered in the same game and the sixth time they did it back-to-back. The latter tied a franchise record set in 2009 by Johnny Damon and Mark Teixeira.
Soto, who has hit nine homers in the last 13 games and has 95 RBIs, heard chants of “Please Stay Soto,” but that will be a decision for another day. “I don’t know. They have to talk to [general manager Brian] Cashman,” he said.
“Certainly the fan base has embraced him and he’s embraced them right back,” Boone said of the chants. “So, pretty cool.”
Gleyber Torres hit a three-run homer in the eighth. He also picked up an RBI in the second, when Alex Verdugo, LeMahieu, Torres and Soto produced four consecutive two-out singles.
Stroman overcame a 31-pitch first inning and lifted his record to 9-6, allowing three runs in five innings. The AL East-leading Yankees (77-54), who have won 17 of their last 26 games after a 10-23 stretch, moved 1 1⁄2 games ahead of the Orioles.
Notes & quotes: Plate umpire Nick Mahrley left the game in the fifth after being struck on the left side of his neck by the barrel of Stanton’s broken bat, which separated from the handle as he followed through on his single to left. The bat also knocked off Mahrley's mask, making a frightening sound that drew the immediate attention of Rockies catcher Drew Romo. Even as Stanton’s blooper landed in leftfield to load the bases, Romo tried to help the stricken Mahrley for several seconds before turning his attention back to a live play that could have involved a play at the plate. Mahrley’s neck was immobilized before he was put on a stretcher and carted off. He underwent a full battery of tests and Major League Baseball said he was diagnosed with a concussion. The game continued with three umpires as Marvin Hudson replaced Mahrley behind the plate . . . Before Sunday’s game, the Yankees designated reliever Michael Tonkin for assignment and signed righthander Phil Bickford to a major-league deal.
Evan Barnes covers the Nets for Newsday. He previously covered Memphis football and the Memphis Grizzlies and also covered prep sports in Los Angeles.
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