Aaron Judge has been assaulting ballparks, baseballs and baseball history since 2017, and this season he’s continued to make his mark on the record books of both baseball and the Yankees.
On Sunday, Judge bashed his MLB-leading 50th and 51st home runs in a 10-3 blowout of the Colorado Rockies in the Bronx. That gave him his third 50-homer season and put him in the company of Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa, who all had four, and Alex Rodriguez, who had three, including one with the Yankees in 2007.
808 ft of Judge HRs today 👨⚖️
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) August 25, 2024
Presented by @Delta pic.twitter.com/V7huRf08jg
Judge was happy but not as caught up in the moment as everyone else.
“[It’s] a great accomplishment, but there’s more to be done,” said Judge. “This team [has] got a big mission in front of them, and I think we’re all focused on that right now.”
That mission is to win the club’s 28th World Series title, something it has not done since 2009. And after missing the playoffs last year after making the AL Championship Series for six consecutive years (2017 – 2022), Judge is doing everything he can to end the Yankees’ drought.
So far this season, he’s doing just that. He ranks in the top two in many categories including HRs (1st with 51), RBIs (1st with 122), OBP (1st at .465) and batting average (2nd at .333).
If Judge continues on this pace, he will hit 63 home runs, which will break his American League and NY Yankees single-season record of 62 that he set in 2022. However, with 47 home runs over his last 102 games, and with 31 games remaining, Judge could reach 65 HRs, only 8 shy of the Major League record set by Barry Bonds in 2001.
