Aaron Judge hit his 300th career home run on Wednesday night, and while that itself may not be eye-popping, the rate at which he did it certainly is.
The Chicago White Sox intentionally walked Juan Soto to face Judge while trailing 6-2 in the eighth inning, which is certainly a choice.
Judge made them deliver. On a count of three balls and no strikes, Judge ripped a line drive at a velocity of 110.1 mph off his bat into the left field seats at Guaranteed Rate Field, giving New York a 9-2 lead on his 43rd homer of the season.
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Wednesday night marked Judge’s 955th game of his career (eight years and one day since his MLB debut). It’s, by far, the quickest anyone has ever gotten to 300 homers in their career.
The previous record was held by Ralph Kiner, who did it in 1,087 games – it took Judge 132 fewer games, almost a full season, to accomplish it.
Judge is on a fast track to his second MVP Award – he leads the majors in home runs, RBI (110), on-base percentage (.467), slugging percentage (.707), walks (102), and total bases (301), all while his .333 average is the second-best mark in baseball, behind Bobby Witt Jr.’s .349.
He’s actually putting up better numbers than in his 62-homer season two years ago, and at this current rate, even that record is under threat. In all likelihood, Judge will become the fifth player to have three 50-homer seasons, joining Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Alex Rodriguez.
With 300 home runs in 955 games, that’s a 162-game pace of 50 homers a season.
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It’s quite a turnaround for Judge. On May 2, he was hitting just .197, and Yankee fans were clamoring for him to be benched. But since May 3 (entering Wednesday), he’s hitting .387 with a 1.342 OPS.
Judge is in the second year of a nine-year, $360 million deal he signed after that season. His $40 million annual average value is the most ever given to a position player, although teammate Juan Soto might surpass that in the coming offseason.
That contract looked scary last year because Judge missed a chunk of the season with a toe injury after crashing into a concrete portion of the outfield wall at Dodger Stadium. He was hitting .291 with a 1.078 OPS at the time of the injury, but he hit just .238 after returning. It doesn’t seem like fans need to worry much anymore.
The Yankees own a half-game lead over the Baltimore Orioles for the AL East lead with their 72-50 record.
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