Yankees and A-Rod on same page: Aaron Judge moves to second in order
New York Yankees' Aaron Judge strikes out in front next to Cleveland Guardians catcher Austin Hedges during the first inning of Game 3 of the AL Division Series, Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022, in Cleveland. Credit: AP/David Dermer
CLEVELAND
Whether it was due to analytics or A-Rod, the Yankees made a seismic shift in their lineup for Saturday night’s pivotal Game 3 of the Division Series, dropping Aaron Judge to No. 2 in the order and replacing him with Gleyber Torres in the leadoff spot.
The fact that Judge was 0-for-8 with seven strikeouts in the first two games was reason enough to switch it up. After hitting 62 homers during the regular season and falling a few percentage points of the Triple Crown, he was barely making contact since the playoffs began. And the Yankees — or any team, for that matter — can’t have a leadoff man who doesn’t get on base occasionally.
Small sample size, of course. But the Guardians turned this series into a best-of-three with Friday’s 4-2 victory in 10 innings in the Bronx, so it’s not as if the Yankees have a few weeks to figure this out. And after striking out in the first inning Saturday night, Judge hit a 449-foot two-run homer in the third to tie the score at 2-2.
The switch coming when it did was made slightly more amusing by Alex Rodriguez’s comments after Game 2, when the three-time MVP-turned-Fox studio host criticized his former club for consistently deploying Judge atop the lineup, describing the strategy as “gimmicky baseball.”
“You cannot let your best player, your best hitter, [continue] hitting first,” Rodriguez said during the postgame broadcast. “Babe Ruth didn’t do it. Barry Bonds didn’t do it . . . I didn’t do it. It doesn’t exist. The reason why is because you want to protect — you play chess. It’s like the queen of the chess board. You want to put the best two hitters in front [of Judge] and the best two hitters behind, and protect. The Yankees are putting the worst two hitters — the eighth and ninth hitter [in front]. It puts an enormous amount of pressure.
“It’s ridiculous that this guy’s hitting leadoff and it’s a mistake. I don’t know who’s doing it — [Aaron] Boone or [Brian] Cashman — but somebody has to change that immediately.”
Notice the little knife twist there? Questioning who is writing out the Yankees’ lineup? Classic A-Rod poking his former employer. But lo and behold, the following afternoon, when the Yankees released their Game 3 lineup, A-Rod’s words became reality.
Truth is, the circumstances were ripe for such a move, and A-Rod sort of ran into one here by running off his mouth.
The main reason for converting Judge into a full-time leadoff hitter during the past month was the team’s lack of a more suitable option. The Yankees had two candidates and lost both to injuries — DJ LeMahieu (foot) and Andrew Benintendi (hamate bone fracture). Beyond those two, what else could the Yankees do?
No one else on the roster would be superior in that role to Judge, who hit .366 (45-for-123) with a 1.221 OPS in 34 games there during the regular season. Also, his 16 stolen bases were the second-highest total on the club (Isiah Kiner-Falefa had 22). But after keeping Judge there and watching him struggle during the two-game split, the Yankees decided to try something different, presumably independent of A-Rod’s commentary.
“Something I woke up to,” Boone said before Game 3. “And, you know, obviously, Judge has hit a lot of second in his career. Just wanted to shake that up a little bit.”
With an army of data analysts at the Yankees’ disposal, we’d venture to guess they don’t make any decisions before morning coffee. And Boone surely consulted with the number-crunchers before penciling in the names for Saturday’s lineup.
Not that the evidence backs Torres, who made only three starts at leadoff this season, hitting .333 (4-for-12), and 10 for his career (.175 average, one double, one homer). Torres just seems like the best square peg for a round hole, and maybe sliding Judge down gives him a chance to exhale after going pedal-to-the-floor for the last month or so.
After Friday’s loss, Judge explained that his issues are more about swing maintenance than fatigue, but once you reach October, there are no days off to clear the head and self-correct. Going back to the two-hole, where Judge made 112 starts this season (.294/.406/.680), is one of the few adjustments left to try.
“I think it’s just mechanical,” Judge said of his two-game skid. “You kind of get juiced up getting into October. This is the time of year, this is what you do all the hard work throughout the offseason to get to, so I don’t think anybody in this room is tired.”
But if anyone had the right to feel a little sluggish, it would be Judge, who endured the unprecedented strain — both mental and physical — of chasing down a single-season home run record that had stood for more than six decades. It didn’t help that the Maris chase stretched until Game No. 161, with Judge not only dealing with the pressure of trying to hit the ball over the fence every swing but having to be patient enough to wait for a rare pitch in the strike zone.
That’s probably not ideal for keeping your A-swing in premium shape, and what we witnessed from Judge in the first two games, getting more air than baseball, could be a byproduct of that chase for 62.
Is a change in lineup scenery going to fix that? Boone described Judge as his “most logical leadoff guy,” but at this point, with the Yankees’ offense having sputtered in this series, sliding down one spot couldn’t hurt.
Other than maybe the pain from having to listen to A-Rod take credit for it.
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.
