BRONX, NY — Mets starting pitcher Jose Quintana said what everyone already knew regarding his strategy against slugger Aaron Judge following his team’s 3-2 win over the Yankees on Tuesday night.
In three at-bats against Quintana, Judge, who leads the majors with 35 home runs and is piecing together another MVP-caliber season, saw 14 pitches. Two of them were strikes, 12 were balls as he was walked three times.
Such a strategy makes perfect sense especially because manager Aaron Boone made the puzzling decision to bat JD Davis behind Judge — the former Met acquired from the Oakland Athletics in late June who entered Tuesday night 1-for-his-first-13 with the Yankees.
“I tried to attack [Judge] but I know how hot he is right now, you know?” Quintana began. “So I’d take my chances with [JD] Davis.”
The impromptu clean-up hitter for the Yankees put up little resistance against his old team. He struck out in the first and fifth innings, waving wildly at Quintana’s curveballs. In the third with Judge on first and one out, he grounded into an inning-ending double play.
“Quintana did a good job of slowing him down and speeding him up,” Boone said. “I thought he was on his game tonight. He didn’t seem like he missed a lot in the middle of the plate and got his breaking balls in good spots… He did that to JD.”
What allowed Quintana to take the passive route was to attack No. 2 hitter Juan Soto, who grounded out to Pete Alonso twice in the first and third innings before lining out to the first baseman in the fifth to ensure the basepaths were empty each time Judge came up.
“The big challenge was to get Soto out before that and get more room to pitch to Judge,” Quintana said. “My fastball, the two-seam, I hit my spots.”
Trailing by one with one out in the seventh inning and Trent Grisham on first, Judge was intentionally walked to put two men on and the tying run in scoring position against Mets reliever Dedniel Nunez. Pinch-hitter Ben Rice flew out to the warning track in center before Anthony Volpe grounded into an inning-ending fielder’s choice. The lack of depth contributed toward a 1-for-9 showing with runners in scoring position while leaving 11 men on base in the 3-2 loss.
Mets manager Carlos Mendoza did not beat around the bush, either, about how he wanted to face Judge as his squad is one of the teams providing an exact blueprint of how to neutralize the Bronx Bombers’ top-heavy offense.
“You saw it,” Mendoza said. “There are situations where we want to go after him and there are other situations that will dictate the way we are going to attack Judge.”
In the bottom of the ninth and the tying run on first, Mendoza made the gut call to go after Judge with struggling reliever Jake Diekman, who painted a 96-mph two-seam fastball on the inside corner to get the superstar looking at strike three.
This sort of plan will only continue as long as the bats behind him remain tame.
“We’ve seen that. Some teams take that approach,” Boone said. “We’ll get that middle of the order more settled in the coming days which will change the equation a little bit. But there are going to be times where teams take that approach… We just have to get the middle of our order a little more settled and hopefully that will come back to bite teams when they do it and force them to go after [Judge].”
Where that settlement will come from remains to be seen. Volpe, Gleyber Torres, and Alex Verdugo have not been consistent enough to run away with the No. 4 spot in the order. Their best chance may be the young phenom, Jasson Dominguez, who is expected to start his rehab assignment in Triple-A within the week as he recovers from a strained oblique.
