Aaron horse
Judges's fifth-inning OF snag prevents distressing deficit
Aaron Judge’s bat has helped win the Yankees plenty of games this season, but his defense did the job on Saturday night.
The Yankees right fielder robbed Bobby Dalbec of a home run to save a run before the Yankees came back to beat the Red Sox, 5-3, at Fenway Park.
Dalbec smoked a fly ball to right-center field (104.6 mph off the bat, per Statcast) in the fifth inning off Nestor Cortes Jr., and it looked to be headed for the Red Sox bullpen. But Judge raced back and reached up to snag it while running into the wall to keep the Red Sox’s lead to 1-0 at the time.
“Huge. Game-changer right there,” Cortes said. “The ball goes over the fence, God knows what happens. Obviously, Judge is a great defender out there, and I’m glad he’s playing right field for me.”
Judge nearly made it even more of a highlight-reel play, gathering himself and throwing back to first base to almost double off Kyle Schwarber. But the Red Sox slugger slid back in just in time to beat Judge’s throw.
Still, the defensive gem proved critical. The Red Sox went on to load the bases with one out and scratched across one run on Michael King’s wild pitch, but the Yankees got out of the inning trailing just 2-0 instead of letting the game get away from them.
“What a play,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Obviously, hit very well off the bat. I had a good sight line with Judgey, so I saw that he got off to a good break. He knew he had to get on his horse and put his nose down to get after it to cover the ground and he was able to do that. “It was a really special play.” Judge went 0-for-3 at the plate but drew a big walk in the eighth inning. With Brett Gardner on second and two outs, he got into a 2-2 count and then laid off two sweeping sliders from Red Sox reliever Tanner Houck to take first base.
Two batters later, Giancarlo Stanton crushed a go-ahead grand slam to lift the Yankees to a critical win.