Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge give Yankees fans their money's worth
Aaron Judge #99 of the Yankees follows through on his third inning home run against the San Francisco Giants at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, Apr. 2, 2023. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Anthony Volpe and Jhony Brito, two promising young Yankees, made their major league debuts in the first three days of the season’s first week.
Things went well for both of them.
But let’s not kid ourselves: The main event in the Bronx always has been baseball bombers who wow the paying customers with their power.
On Sunday, the two most potent practitioners in the current lineup reminded us of that in leading the Yankees to a 6-0 victory over the Giants at Yankee Stadium.
Aaron Judge, whom you may recall from 2022’s back pages, hit a third-inning home run that was a low-altitude, 392-foot rocket to leftfield.
Then, after an infield hit by Anthony Rizzo, Giancarlo Stanton obliterated a pitch from Ross Stripling. It landed above the batter’s eye in centerfield — a 485-foot shot.
Judge had homered in the opener and Stanton had done it on Saturday. So if you are scoring at home, that is two each through three games.
The Yankees are 29-2 when both hit a home run in the same game as teammates.
It takes a lot to impress major-leaguers, especially a guy like manager Aaron Boone who grew up in the game and has seen it all. But even he has not seen anything quite like Stanton.
“G’s weird,” Boone said. “Every time he comes in after one of those, I just tell him, ‘You’re weird. You’re different.’
“I mean, he hits it and you know it’s going over the batter’s eye. It’s like, where is this thing going to go? I mean, he’s different. He’s different.”
It was the second-longest homer of Stanton’s career, according to Statcast, behind only a 504-footer in the thin air of Denver when he was a Marlin in 2016.
It also was the third-longest projected home run distance at the current Yankee Stadium in the Statcast era (since 2015), trailing only two shots by Judge of 496 and 495 feet.
Stanton and Nomar Mazara are the only major-leaguers with three home runs of at least 480 feet in the Statcast era.
“We were in the dugout just scratching our heads a little bit because it went so far,” said Kyle Higashioka, who hit a home run of his own in the fourth inning.
“I mean, he’s definitely one-of-one in terms of putting the hurt on a baseball. It’s just so much fun to watch him.”
Neither Judge nor Stanton can keep up this pace, presumably. But they can continue to bash the Yankees to offensive cushions as the pitching rotation gets healthy.
Brito was excellent on Sunday, allowing two hits — one on a bunt — striking out six and walking one in five innings.
And Volpe continued to do his thing, stealing his third base of the season, manufacturing a run and generally discombobulating the San Francisco pitchers.
But again, this was a day for the sluggers to slug.
“It’s unbelievable, [Stanton] and Judgy, the things that they’ve been able to do,” Isiah Kiner-Falefa said.
“We see it every day. We almost get spoiled, but not everybody can do it. It’s incredible. It just shows you the type of players those guys are. It’s cool to be their teammate.”
Stanton parried reporters’ attempts to get him to gush about his blast, simply saying he focused on getting his arms extended after being tied up in previous at-bats on Saturday and in his first time up on Sunday.
He said it was “cool” to have his second-longest homer but added, “I don’t worry about that too much. Just put a swing on.
“It’s pretty cool. Everything synced up, timing and striking it on point and just let it go.”
As far as the projected distance, he said, “As long as it goes over the fence, that’s cool with me.”
Asked if he and Judge try to one-up each other in hitting home runs, he said, “It’s not a competition. We’re both here to help us win and be the best we can.”
Stanton was aware of the Yankees’ success when the two homer in the same game.
He initially thought they had lost only once. Someone corrected him, but 29-2 still is pretty good, right?
“It is,” Stanton said. “It means we have to keep doing it.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
