HOLDING COURT
Yankees slugger Judge wins Home Run Derby
MIAMI — Aaron Judge dominated the All-Star Home Run Derby in the same manner he has smashed his way through his rookie season.
The larger-than-life New York Yankees slugger beat Minnesota’s Miguel Sano 11-10 with two minutes to spare in the final Monday night, reaching 513 feet and displaying remarkable power to all fields.
Judge, 6-foot-7 and 282 pounds, sprayed balls off the glass behind left field that supports the Marlins Park retractable roof, hit one over the Red Grooms home run sculpture in leftcenter, over the batter’s eye in straightaway center and, unusual for a derby, several to the opposite field, too. He also hit the roof near a light bank in left, 160 feet above the field. That drive didn’t count.
Hitting second each time, Judge knocked out Miami’s Justin Bour 23-22 in the first round and beat Los Angeles Dodgers rookie Cody Bellinger 13-12 in the second. Then, with lightning visible behind the huge glass door, he hit a 458-foot drive to center for the title.
Judge leads the major league with 30 home runs and some Yankees fans showed up to support him in their full dress — flowing black robes and white powdered wigs. Booed initially by the crowd of 37,027, Judge earned their cheers once defending champion Giancarlo Stanton of the Marlins was eliminated in the first round.
Judge has hit the longest home run in the regular season this year in the majors — 495 feet. He’s also broken a TV monitor at Yankee Stadium with a long drive and dented a door casing.
scouts from all 30 major league teams will be there.
“My whole plan is just to go in and not change anything,” said Parker, 4-5 last season with the Monarchs. But he posted a 1.82 ERA and struck out 117 batters in just 57⅔ innings. Among those losses was a 1-0 decision to state champion La Cueva, the state’s most powerful offense. And Parker perfect-gamed the Bears in 2016.
Long Beach, of course, presents an entirely new challenge.
“I’ve pitched a thousand games in my life and there’s nothing different about this one,” he said. “Just basically (I want) to keep it not stressful.”
In Arizona earlier this summer, a college scout commented to Parker’s father Tom about that very trait.
“He said, ‘I couldn’t tell if (he) was winning or losing by the way he was pitching,’” Tom Parker said. “I think (Mitchell) knows how important (Area Code) is. But he’s good at not getting stressed out about too many things. I would give him credit for that ability. He is just stone cold.”
Parker already has participated in the Perfect Game National Showcase event in south Florida, and last week the team he played on finished third at the nearly 400-team Perfect Game 17U WWBA National Championship in Atlanta.
Parker goes to Phoenix next week for the Perfect Game World Series, and he might even put in a brief appearance at the Connie Mack World Series in Farmington before traveling to California for the Area Code Games.
Parker’s workload is — and will be into next spring with the Monarchs — being closely monitored.
“Absolutely,” Tom Parker said. “If we were taking a model from Trevor Rogers, that is probably one of the biggest things we took from him, managing his workload. We won’t do anything that won’t benefit him.”
In Atlanta, where he pitched one game, Parker said his fastball topped out at 93 mph, up a tick (92) from where he usually maxes out. He possesses electric stuff, including a nasty curveball, but “honestly,” he said, “I could put in a whole lot more work with it,” Parker said.
Last week, Parker de-committed from New Mexico and verbally committed to Tennessee. His father lives in Nashville, and much of Parker’s family is from Tennessee. And Parker said if he needs to spend three years with the Vols before making jump to professional baseball, he’s prepared to do that.
“Getting drafted (next June) would be great,” Parker said, “but right now, my whole goal is to play in college and get drafted out of college, and play in one of the best conferences in the country.”