Yankees say they aren't too concerned by Aaron Judge's power outage

It is hardly unusual for players to have poor 15-game stretches during the 162-game regular season.

Often, and this is the case for players en route to winning batting titles or even MVP awards, those stretches last far longer than that.

But given Aaron Judge's year to date, him bringing a 15-game homerless streak (matching the longest of his career) into Thursday night’s series opener against the Red Sox drew a lot of attention.

“I don’t have any concern,” hitting coach James Rowson said before Thursday’s game. “I think he’s close. I think there’s been some balls that he’s been close on that he hasn’t gotten results from. I think we’re so accustomed to him hitting home runs, and obviously it’s been a while since he’s hit one in terms of him. Not really in terms of the game, but in terms of him.”

To be clear, Judge, hitting .204 with a .618 OPS in his last 15 games going into Thursday, hasn’t exactly fallen off a cliff. The centerfielder, in a tightening AL MVP race with Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., still entered Thursday with gaudy numbers, hitting .320 with 51 homers, 126 RBIs, 119 walks and a 1.140 OPS this season. Judge, who did reach base three times in Wednesday night’s series-clinching victory over the Royals, leads the big leagues in homers, RBIs, on-base percentage (.454), slugging (.686), OPS, walks, times on base (292), total bases (352) and extra-base hits (85).

“Baseball. That’s hitting,” Aaron Boone said of Judge. “Even for kind of another historic season that he’s putting together, you’re still going to go through it at different times. We saw it a little bit in April, we’ve seen it now for a couple weeks where he’s not dominating at his usual self. But it’s something I’m confident he’ll get rolling and look forward to when we hop on again.”

Because of what Judge’s last four-plus months have looked like, the April which Boone referenced has mostly been forgotten.

But Judge ended April hitting .207 with six homers, 18 RBIs and a .754 OPS in 31 games.

“Right now, when I’m getting that pitch to hit, I’m just missing it or hitting it right into the ground,” Judge said on May 2 in Baltimore after a 7-2 loss to the Orioles. “I’m going to make a couple of adjustments and we’ll be right there.”

The Yankees lost three of four to the Orioles in that series, with Judge going 1-for-13 to drop his season batting average to .197.

The performance caused this question to be asked of Boone:  Are you considering dropping Judge in the batting order?

The Yankees, and Boone, unsurprisingly were not considering it.

“Somebody’s going to pay, big-time,” Boone said then. “He’ll get it going, and look out when he does.”

Judge took off soon after.

Over his next 96 games, Judge slashed .383/.512/.861 with 45 homers, 104 RBIs and a 1.372 OPS.

“I could see where you might wonder (what’s going on), but from my standpoint, I’m always looking to say, is there something alarming? Is there something I’m worried about?” Rowson said Thursday. “And that’s not the case with him. So it’s just a matter, to me, of hopefully over the next couple of days he gets a pitch that’s right where he’s looking for, and he’s able to get that monkey off his back a little bit, and get going like he normally does.”

Extra bases

Rookie catcher Austin Wells, who hit a game-tying sacrifice fly as a pinch hitter in the 10th inning of Wednesday’s 4-3 victory in 11 innings, was back in the lineup Thursday. Going into the night, Wells, who has put a hammerlock on the cleanup spot in the order, was slashing .302/.373/.518 (42-for-139) with seven homers, seven doubles, 30 RBIs and 14 runs in his previous 39 games … The Yankees clinched their 32nd consecutive winning season (since 1993), the second-longest such stretch in Major League Baseball history behind the franchise’s streak of 39 straight winning seasons from 1926-64 … Wednesday marked the Yankees’ 32nd comeback victory of the season, surpassing their total (31) in that category a season ago when they finished 82-80.