Judge, Bombers starting to get ‘comfortable’

Aaron Judge tumbled to the ground in the bottom of the first inning as he tried to slide, dive or not-so-sneakily avoid a tag at third base. Perhaps the Yankees outfielder is just better suited to making his way around the bases in a home run trot. But his most meaningful jog Friday night came after he watched ball four go by with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth, making his way to first after a walk forced in the goahead run before the Yankees had to come back again in the ninth to earn a 7-6 win over the Indians at Yankee Stadium.

“This team’s special,” said Judge, who finished 2for-4 with the walk. “There’s just always a growing pain in the middle where you gotta get guys comfortable, get guys used to each other and once that happens, this team’s going to go on a pretty good run. Once we all start clicking, it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Judge came to the plate in the eighth to face Alexi Ogando. He watched some video of Ogando before the at-bat so he could be more confident in the box, but fell behind 1-2 before watching the next three pitches go by out of the zone.

“It’s tough [to lay off of them], but I know what kind of team I got around me, so I just trusted in them,” Judge said.

Judge did get to practice his home run trot for the eighth time this year when he homered in the fourth inning, at the time giving the Yankees a 4-0 lead.

The 6-foot-7, 282-pound Judge’s unsuccessful crash into third came after his first-inning double. He tried to move 90 feet on Didi Gregorius’ grounder to shortstop, but was tagged out by Jose Ramirez.

Coming off his Rookie of the Year campaign, Judge has experienced no hangover. He has a slash line of .305/.432/.576 with those eight homers and 21 RBIs while locked into the two-hole.

Judge went just 5-for-28 during the Yankees’ seven-game road trip, but immediately made himself back at home. He reached base safely for a 31st straight game at Yankee Stadium, the second-longest on-base streak in The Bronx behind Mark Teixeira’s 33-gamer in 2010.