Aaron Judge hit his 50th and 51st home runs of the season during the New York Yankees’ 8-1 win over the Chicago White Sox at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night. With these home runs, Judge became only the fourth player in Major League Baseball history to record four separate seasons with at least 50 home runs. The other players to achieve this are Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa. Judge and Ruth are also the only Yankees to have consecutive years with 50 or more homers.
“I can’t. If you sit back and admire it, you’re going to stop your momentum,” Judge said after the game. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done. Hopefully I have a long career here and we do some special things. We can talk about it at the end.”
The victory brought the Yankees (90-68) into a tie with the Toronto Blue Jays for first place in the American League East after Toronto lost to Boston. However, Toronto holds the head-to-head tiebreaker against New York.
“It’s unbelievable, but that’s baseball, especially with the expanded postseason,” Judge said about the division race. “You’re going to have some moments like this where teams are going back and forth. When I go home, I turn on MLB Network, check all the scores, see what’s happening. It’s pretty amazing.”
Judge started New York’s scoring with a three-run homer off reliever Jonathan Cannon in the second inning. The ball left his bat at 106.9 mph and traveled an estimated 392 feet.
“He hits everything,” Cannon said following his appearance for Chicago after being recalled from Triple-A Charlotte before the game. “I mean, he’s the best hitter in the game for a reason. Just a really good player. I made a bad pitch to him over the plate, and he punished me for it.”
Paul Goldschmidt and Jazz Chisholm Jr. each contributed run-scoring hits in support of Max Fried, who pitched seven innings for New York and finished his first regular season as a Yankee with a 19-5 record and a 2.86 ERA.
“The consistency is incredible,” Fried said of Judge’s performance throughout the year. “Every game that he plays, everyone is giving their best stuff to him, every single day. The consistency and discipline that he’s able to have, not taking an at-bat off and making sure that he’s doing everything that he can – his ability to lock in like that, it’s extremely impressive.”
Trent Grisham added his 34th home run before Judge hit another homer in the eighth inning—his second of the night—marking his 46th career multihomer game and tying Mickey Mantle for second most such games in franchise history behind Babe Ruth.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone commented on Judge’s leadership: “Those guys [in the clubhouse] are tight because it starts with him,” Boone said. “He makes it a point to make sure everyone is heard, seen, a part of it. He takes that responsibility very seriously. It’s one of the things that helps us navigate the long, tough season. He’s the total package.”
After clinching their eighth postseason berth in nine years just one night earlier, Judge praised his teammates’ focus despite celebrations: “Walking through here throughout the day, everybody just had a focused, determined look in their eye,” Judge said postgame. “They knew that we punched our ticket into the postseason and have an opportunity to go back to the World Series, but there’s still a greater goal ahead of us in the last couple of games.”
