If Aaron Judge is going to hit 62 home runs, he will have to do it on the road.
In the final regular-season game of the season at Yankee Stadium, Judge went 0-for-3 with a walk and three strikeouts as the Yankees fell to the Orioles 3-1 on a cold, wet and windy Sunday afternoon.
Despite pleas from what was left of the crowd of 44,332, the Yankees could not get Judge another at-bat in the ninth inning. The game ended with Judge, sitting on 61 home runs, two batters away from getting up.
“It would [have been] nice to hit it at home and do something special like that for the home fans,” Judge said. “But at the end of the day, I got a job to do. I got at-bats getting ready for the postseason. So it didn’t happen, but the season’s not over yet.”
The Yankees (97-61) will end the regular season with four games in three days in Texas against the Rangers, beginning on Monday, with Judge still trying to pass Roger Maris for sole possession of the American League and franchise single-season home run record. It’s possible that Judge might only play in three of those games, with the Yankees likely not wanting to push him to play in both ends of Tuesday’s doubleheader.
“This is a good place to be,” Judge said. “Very few people get this opportunity to get a chance to do this. Being able to do it in a Yankee uniform and tied with Roger Maris, that’s a special feat right there. It would have been nice to do it at home for the fans, but we still got four more games.”
The Yankees lost Sunday’s game in the seventh inning when Aroldis Chapman walked three of the five batters he faced, including one with the bases loaded to force in a run that broke a 1-1 tie. The Orioles (82-77) then added a sacrifice fly off Ron Marinaccio, who later left the game in the eighth inning with a shin injury.
A week after Judge was robbed of at least one Yankee Stadium at-bat when a game against the Red Sox was called after six innings because of rain, Mother Nature threatened again on Sunday. But the game got underway on time with some light rain passing through.
Facing Orioles rookie right-hander Kyle Bradish, Judge struck out looking at a 2-2 slider on the outside corner to lead off the bottom of the first.
Judge got another crack in the second inning with two outs and the bases loaded. But after fouling off three pitches in the at-bat, he chased a 2-2 curveball in the dirt and could not hold up his swing as he struck out for the second time.
In the fifth inning, with the rain picking up, Judge got a pitch to do damage with — a 92 mph fastball over the middle of the plate. But he fouled it back to the net, the only strike he saw during the plate appearance as he walked on five pitches.
Reliever Bryan Baker then struck out Judge on a 99 mph fastball at the top of the zone in the seventh inning.
“I had a couple opportunities — especially with the bases loaded — to drive some runs in and try to get a rally going,” Judge said. “Just missed out, chasing a couple pitches.”
Chi Chi Gonzalez was called up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to make a spot start and gave the Yankees what they needed, allowing one run over 4 ²/₃ innings.
But after the Yankees tied it in the fifth inning, they were unable to mount any offense the rest of the way, including Judge in his final chance to make history at home.
“Obviously that would have been amazing, but it’s really hard to hit a home run,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Especially when the circumstances are just a little odd around it all and where we are in the season. A lot of things have to sync up, even for the greatest of the great to go deep.”
