Judge hits the big 5-0
Rookie HR mark boosts Judge MVP case
Yankees phenom Aaron Judge belts first of a pair of home runs in the Bombers’ 11-3 win over the Royals on Monday, giving him 50 for the year to surpass Mark McGwire’s single-season record for dingers by a rookie.
Only a month or so after it was fair to ask whether Aaron Judge might prove to be a half-year wonder, as he looked hopelessly overmatched at the plate, the rookie is finishing the season in a fashion more spectacular than it began, as impossible as that sounds.
In doing so Judge is not just setting records, on Monday becoming the first rookie to ever hit 50 home runs in a season, but fueling a 16-7 September for the Yankees in the heat of a playoff chase.
He hit two more home runs in Monday’s 11-3 win over the Royals, giving him 13 this month, so he’s hitting them when it counts most, making a case that he deserves to be the MVP in the American League, in addition to Rookie of the Year.
I’ll get to that, but Judge’s milestone was about more than an MVP debate, to be sure. His classy, humble nature through the good times and bad this season made the moment worth celebrating all the more, and for once he had little choice but to bask in some personal glory. Well, sort of, anyway. Teammates had to urge him out of the dugout to take a curtain call after he hit No. 50, and, remarkably for someone who hits moon shots like he does, he said it was the first he’d ever received at any level of baseball.
Meanwhile, he all but admitted to being a bit embarrassed by the attention.
“Just the spotlight,’’ he explained. “The game’s still going on.”
By now we know this is no phony act with Judge. If it were his teammates would have grown sick and tired of talking about him months ago. Instead they seem to admire everything about him, including the way he fought through his second-half slump without any woe-is-me pouting in the clubhouse.
“He went through it and just kept working,’’ Todd Frazier said on Monday. “That’s very hard to come back from, but that’s his mentality, his personality. It’s incredible, hitting 50, and for him to be as humble as he is, it’s an honor to play with him.”
You don’t hear that a lot in bigleague clubhouses, but Judge has that effect on everyone around him, it seems.
He may be a rookie but Joe Girardi on Monday called him “a natural born-leader. He’s like a big brother who watches over everybody. You’ve got the whole package with him.”
So this was a feel-good day by any measure — getting to 50 home runs made it one of the all-time great seasons in Yankee history, which obviously covers a lot of territory.
Yet the MVP debate is too intriguing to ignore.
The competition is fierce, and I’m not saying the voters would be wrong to vote the award to the Astros’ Jose Altuve, who has been regarded as the favorite for weeks, or even the Indians’ Jose Ramirez.
But if I had a vote I’d have to give the nod to Judge.
For one thing, I’m convinced that without his astonishing power show early in the first couple of months, the Yankees never would have gotten off to the 21-9 start
that instilled a confident vibe in the clubhouse and changed everything about their season — including GM Brian Cashman’s willingness to deal prospects for reinforcements come July.
Obviously it wasn’t just Judge who hit, then or now, but for the most part the Yankees’ season correlates with his ups and downs. In April and September they are 31-15, their two best months of the season, with the big guy leading the way.
And while the bullpen’s struggles derailed them at times through the middle of the season, their 28-27 record in July and August was owed largely to Judge’s second-half slump.
Now they’re playing as well as any team in baseball, and if the Red Sox weren’t playing at a similarly high level, the Yankees at the very least would be closing in on first place by now.
A week or so ago I wrote that Judge’s fate as an MVP candidate, as he was getting hot again, might depend on the Yankees’ ability to catch the Sox — or at least take them to the wire. That was the feeling I got from talking confidentially to three Baseball Writers’ Association of America voters, anyway — of the 30 who vote on the AL MVP.
And that might turn out to be the case. But is it fair to deny Judge the award simply because the Red Sox have refused to give ground over these final few weeks?
The more I thought about it, the more I had trouble reconciling that notion. He’s doing it in pressure games for a team going to the post-season, after all, and not only is Judge finishing with a flourish, but at some point his overall numbers Tare just overwhelming. he runs scored, the RBIs, the walks, the OPS, even his defense in the outfield… only Mike Trout can match or top him, and he’s missed 40 games this season due to injury.
So, yes, Judge is the complete package but let’s be honest, it’s those 50 home runs that make him different from everybody else. Well, that and being embarrassed to take a curtain call.