Healthy Judge slugs 30th HR
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Aaron Judge hit his 30th home run in Wednesday night’s 4-1 win over the Angels and enters the final month of the season as good as he’s been all year.
That’s in part due to being able to stay healthy, outside of a stint on the COVID-19 IL.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done,’’ Judge said of his production at the plate.
He credited his teammates getting on base to give him opportunities to drive in runs, but acknowledged he’s playing a little safer than in years past.
“The most important thing is not running into too many walls and doing stupid stuff out there that causes injuries,’’ Judge said.
The Yankees would like that to remain the case, since they know what Judge can do when he’s on — and he’s reached base in 22 of his past 23 games and gotten multiple hits in eight of his last nine.
Gerrit Cole said Judge’s approach at the plate is “tried and true” and he has an ability to take away the strengths of opposing pitchers with his ability to cover the entire plate and hit to all fields.
Aaron Boone put it more bluntly: “Let’s not overthink it. He’s playing really well.”
➤ Gio Urshela sat out Wednesday and is scheduled to get an MRI exam after injuring his left hand in Tuesday’s loss, according to Boone.
The manager said Urshela fell on the hand when he landed on the delayed double steal, when Urshela caught a throw from Gary Sanchez at second base and immediately threw home in an attempt to get Shohei Ohtani who successfully stole home.
Urshela just came back from the strained left hamstring that sidelined him for a month. Andrew Velazquez started at shortstop on Wednesday, with Rougned Odor at third.
Gleyber Torres is expected to play a final rehab game with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Thursday after SWB’s game on Wednesday was washed out.
If all goes well, Torres will return to the Yankees on Friday when they begin a homestand against Baltimore. He’s been out with a sprained left thumb.
➤ Luis Severino is still just playing catch after being shut down with shoulder tightness while warming up for a rehab start for SWB on Aug. 13. It’s been another lost season for the right-hander, who was coming back from 2020 Tommy John surgery when he strained his groin during a rehab start that pushed back his return and then dealt with the shoulder tightness.