Judge’s 40th is milestone homer

Aaron Judge reacted with a sense of awe about the company of Yankees legends the young slugger joined with his 40-homer season.

“Pretty surreal. Never as a kid did I think that I would be in the same sentence with those guys,” Judge said. “It’s quite an honor. It’s pretty humbling.”

The 25-year-old Judge homered twice Sunday in New York’s series-clinching 16-7 win at Texas, becoming only the second major league rookie with a 40-homer season. He also joined Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle as the only Yankees to hit 40 homers at age 25 or younger.

Gary Sanchez also hit two homers for the AL wild card-leading Yankees, giving him 30 this season and 50 in 161 games since his 2015 debut.

“It’s incredible what they’ve both done,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.

Mark McGwire hit a league-high 49 homers as a rookie for Oakland in 1987, and Judge — who leads the AL with 41 — remembers following Big Mac.

“Especially when he was in that home run hunt, with Sammy Sosa, it was fun to watch,” Judge said. “It was pretty cool to see as a kid. To be in the same category with him, it’s pretty special.”

Judge had his fourth multihomer game this year, his first since June 11. He has four homers in seven games since breaking a homerless skid of 57 at-bats and 15 games that stretched back to Aug. 16.

Golf

U.S. WINS WALKER CUP » The United States won back the Walker Cup from Britain and Ireland in an unprecedented runaway that atoned for a big loss two years ago.

Collin Morikawa, Doug Ghim and Maverick McNealy each went 4-0 — a first for a team in Walker Cup history — to lead the United States to a 19-7 victory in the biennial amateur matches at the super exclusive Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course.

Norman Xiong, at 18 the youngest player in the competition, came painfully close to also going 4-0 before halving his match with Scott Gregory. Xiong, one of three Southern Californians who had huge performances this weekend, had been up 2 with two holes to play before Gregory caught him.

It was a big turnaround from two years ago, when Britain and Ireland won 16 1/2-9 1/2 at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. The 19 points for the Americans matched the most ever in Walker Cup history. That came in 1993 when the United States won, 19-5.

It was special for Morikawa in helping the United States extend its lead to 36-9-1 in a series that dates to 1922.

Morikawa, who’s from La Canada Flintridge and plays at California, beat British Amateur champion Harry Ellis 2 and 1 to cap his perfect weekend.

“It’s something special and you can’t really explain what it is,” Morikawa said.

LM OTERO — ASSOCIATED PRESS The Yankees’ Aaron Judge points skyward on his way to crossing home plate after hitting a solo home run during the sixth inning on Sept. 10.