Yankees slugger Aaron Judge homered at Camden Yards. Again. This time, though, it was to make some history.
The 2022 American League MVP had his second consecutive game with a home run as the Yankees bested the Orioles on Saturday afternoon. This time it was a gargantuan, 450-foot shot in the fifth inning to put New York up 6-1 — the score that they would ultimately win by.
The superstar outfielder hit his 34th home run, breaking the Yankees’ franchise record for home runs before the All-Star break. It is the seventh most in major-league history before the All-Star break. Barry Bonds holds the record with 39 home runs before the break in 2001.
Judge has lived up to the nine-year, $360 million contract he signed with New York over the offseason. He leads MLB in home runs with 34, RBI with 85, and OPS (On-Base Plus Slugging) with a torrid 1.114 mark. The “Captain” has been the leader of a Yankees team that entered Sunday’s series finale in Baltimore in a tie for first place in the AL East with a 58-39 record.
Judge is on pace for 56 home runs, coming up a bit short of his AL record of 62 in 2022. Still, if there is anyone who can heat up in a hurry and hit the ball out of the park in abundance, it would be Judge. He had 33 home runs before the All-Star break in 2022.
Judge will not be participating in the Home Run Derby, which he won as a rookie in 2017 with 47 home runs. He notoriously struggled the second half of that season after that victory, so it is of little surprise that the Yankees slugger is skipping the event.
Judge has been hitting third in the batting order for the majority of the season, a shift from the previous few years when he generally hit second. This is in large part due to the Yankees offseason acquisition of All-Star Juan Soto.
Soto has slid right into the second spot of the lineup and has done what he always does: hit. He owns a robust .300 batting average and has 23 home runs and 66 RBI. There is no doubt the presence of another All-Star hitter makes this Yankees lineup all the more formidable.
Watching Judge try to break his own AL home run record will undoubtedly be fun to see in the second half of the season. The Major League record is 73 by Barry Bonds, so Judge will have to do some serious catching up to break that.
