From Pat Donnelly:
It was just one pitch and one swing in a game filled with plenty of both. But anyone who saw it will surely never forget the moment.
It looks innocuous enough in the box score. Aaron Judge hit a solo home run off Twins starter Pablo López in the first inning of Wednesday’s 4-0 Yankees victory at Target Field. Judge does that a lot, after all. It was his 11th homer of the season, the 268th of his career.
But few of them have been as jaw-dropping as Wednesday night’s rocket. The ball left his bat at 113 mph and was projected to travel 467 feet by Statcast into the third deck beyond left field. The sound of bat meeting ball was followed by an audible gasp — a moment of near silence — before the Yankees fans in the crowd (and even many Twins fans) shook off their collective daze and roared in appreciation for the monumental blast.
“He felt a little oversized for the park,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “That’s cleaning out a good fastball there and leaving no doubts.”
It’s a great shot by YES of the other Yankee players reacting to Judge’s home run for the featured image.
That was one methodical ass victory. Decent starting pitching from Stroman, good relief pitching, and just a relentless offense that wore down a good starting pitcher, and then ultimately added on runs against the bullpen.
Judge’s OPS is now almost as high as Soto’s, which just sounds crazy, right?
I rarely consume baseball media outside of Yankee-centric blogs so I really don’t know how Judge is perceived in the larger world, but I get the feeling that Judge is underrated/underappreciated by Yankee fans. Or at least by Yankee fans that follow such blogs.
I know I do.
It might be the strikeouts or familiarity or just the anticipation of him dropping off a cliff.
I think it’s that as we become more educated as fans we start looking at what a player doesn’t do well instead of appreciating what they bring.
Anyway, Judge is awesome. I won’t be surprised if he ends up with better numbers than Soto and I won’t be surprised if I spend more time fretting about his injuries and body type than appreciating that awesomeness.
1:10 start
A Volpe (R) SS
J Soto (L) RF
A Judge (R) DH
A Verdugo (L) LF
G Torres (R) 2B
A Rizzo (L) 1B
A Wells (L) C
J Berti (R) 3B
T Grisham (L) CF
As people get healthier, we’ll start seeing more house money lineups, I suspect.
Ugh.
Kidnap Boone and treat him really well in his underground cell.
Where does Dominguez fit in? I did not expect Verdugo to play this well. Stanton either.
Sadly (for him), probably in the minors until next season.
Dominguez was f*ing Superman in his short time in the majors. If he’s anything like that, I don’t think you worry too much about Verdugo. And you have to give him that chance, right? At least the chance you have Volpe? In short, I think Dominguez plays, and if it’s largely instead of Verdugo – so be it. And we’ll just be pleased that while he was out we got lucky with a patch of well-above-average (and well-above-expected) from Verdugo.
UPD: having read Brian, who must know the lay of the land better…. really?
The Martian could force the issue by dominating the minors, of course, but unless he does, he’ll almost assuredly head to the minors once his rehab is over.
Brian, I can’t see them leaving Jasson in the minors all season. He was up with the intention to stay last year and not just because the OF was thin. I think they’ll bring him up and give him a chance to make an impact. He may go back down but I just feel like they are into him and want him in themajors.
Not only because of that, but, well, pretty much because of that.