How high can Aaron Judge fly? How many home runs will he hit?
Yankees’ Aaron Judge is greeted in the dugout after his second home run of the game against the Colorado Rockies at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Now that Aaron Judge has put Nos. 50 and 51 in his rearview mirror — 60 is a near-certainty at this point — it’s time to accept that anything is possible for the greatest (clean) slugger this generation has ever witnessed.
Officially, Judge is on pace for 63 home runs, which would break his own American League single-season record of 62 set two years ago, but why stop there?
On Sunday, Judge went deep twice for the second time in five games and was part of the back-to-back-to-back homer train with Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton in the seventh inning that blew open the Yankees’ 10-3 rout of the Rockies before a giddy crowd of 41,324 in the Bronx.
This is the part where we usually throw in some colorful adjectives to describe Judge’s Herculean feats, but the numbers speak for themselves. He’s homering once every nine at-bats this season. Barry Bonds, the sport’s home run king, did it once every 13 at-bats in his 22-year career. The year Bonds hit 73? That was once every 6.52 at-bats, but people have stuck an asterisk next to his name for a reason.
This is a much different era and it belongs to Judge, who could have Bonds in his sights someday, if not in the next five weeks. Check out these running tallies: seven homers in his last six games and nine in his last 10. Going back even further, Judge has smashed 47 home runs in a 102-game span, the first player to go on such a power surge and also hit as high as .375 during the same stretch (he's at .377).
“We’re all running out of superlatives to what we’re seeing,” manager Aaron Boone said.
And does Boone believe his captain ultimately can get to Bonds’ 73, the once-unreachable star?
“I’m not going to put a limit on what Aaron Judge can do,” he said.
Smart answer. But not even Bonds was part of the select group that Judge joined Sunday with his third 50-homer season. The only other four to rack up that many are Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez and Babe Ruth. Again, if you filter out the asterisks, that leaves Judge and Babe alone in that category, which makes the captain’s accomplishments even more special. And Judge isn’t finished yet. Five games remain in August and 31 games remain in the regular season.
“It’s unreal,” Stanton said.
You know what also is unreal? That Judge continues to get pitches to hit. We’ve been bringing up the Bonds four-finger treatment for weeks now, and the possibility that Judge would see only a few strikes for an entire series. But that’s not what has happened lately, and there’s reason to believe Judge is still going to get his chances.
Take the Rockies, for example. They’re a team going nowhere, with nothing to lose, so starter Austin Gomber went right at Judge in the first inning. Gomber’s mistake was thinking he was in the driver’s seat up 0-and-2, so he threw an 83-mph changeup — down in the bottom far corner of the strike zone — and quickly learned there is no safe harbor against Judge these days. Judge reached down and hammered the pitch 431 feet into the Rockies' bullpen.
“I don’t even know how you attack him,” Marcus Stroman said. “At some point you’re going to have to pitch to him. And when he’s locked in and he’s on time, it doesn’t really matter where you throw the ball or what pitch you throw, he’s going to do damage.”
Gomber again was aggressive with Judge in the second inning and got him to pop up a full-count pitch, a destabilizing 79-mph knuckle curve. In the fifth, however, Gomber threw four pitches in a different zip code, practically in the Yankees’ on-deck circle, drawing loud boos from the crowd.
Here’s why that’s likely to occur less than you think in the next five weeks. Of the Yankees’ 10 remaining opponents, only the Royals and Orioles are bona fide contenders, so those two figure to be ultra-cautious with Judge, fearing he’ll wreck the game (and potentially their playoff chances) with one swing. The other eight will be thinking like the Rockies — what the heck — and take their best shot against Goliath.
Another factor in Judge’s favor? Stanton is providing some scary protection in the cleanup spot, along with Austin Wells, so dodging Judge won’t be a Get Out of Jail Free card. Putting Judge on base could be akin to simply posting another run on the scoreboard. That’s another thing for opposing pitchers to worry about, although we have no idea what was going through the mind of Rockies reliever Jeff Criswell when he chose to tee up a first-pitch fastball to Judge in that explosive seventh inning. Talk about your instant souvenirs.
Judge insists he’s not mulling milestones — yet.
“I try not to,” he said. “I don’t think that really helps anybody. I got to this point just trying to be a good hitter and be a good teammate, so that’s what I’m gonna try to do. And I feel like if I do that, we can look up at the end of the year and I think the numbers will be where they’re supposed to be.”
Judge already is in a place beyond comprehension. We can’t imagine what’s next.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
