Another historic month is in the (record) books for Aaron Judge.
And not only is he ahead of his pace from his record-breaking 2022 MVP season, he is also giving himself another shot at just about the only thing that was missing from that season besides a championship: a Triple Crown.
Entering Monday’s off day, Judge had raised his batting average to .316, one one-hundredth of a percentage point behind Angels infielder Luis Rengifo for the American League lead.
His 31 home runs and 82 RBIs were both tops in the AL and majors, putting him in a strong position to take another crack at capturing the Triple Crown, which has not been done since Miguel Cabrera in 2012.
“It’d be cool, but it’s not my focus,” Judge said Sunday after going 2-for-4 with a home run in the Yankees’ win over the Blue Jays. “Like a lot of guys in this room, we don’t play for stuff like that. We play to win. Anytime you put on these pinstripes and wear the ‘NY,’ you’re here to win. If that comes with it, it’d be great, but I think we’re all focused on getting a championship first.”
Judge’s incredible 2022 season, of course, was spoiled in October when the Yankees were swept in the ALCS.
He has Juan Soto by his side this time around, and while they will still need a more consistent supporting cast around them, Judge is playing at another level just past the season’s halfway point.
In order to keep the bat in Judge’s hands — and avoid more intentional walks like the one the Blue Jays issued him Saturday — the Yankees will need to prove they can consistently produce behind him, which falls largely on cleanup hitter Alex Verdugo, especially while Giancarlo Stanton is out.
Because in a year when offense is down across the majors, Judge is simply dominating pitching unlike anyone else.
The league-average OPS coming into Monday was .705. Judge’s stood at 1.144. Only Shohei Ohtani (1.034) and Soto (1.005) were anywhere close to the same OPS stratosphere.
“It’s just kind of head and shoulders above anything we’re seeing,” manager Aaron Boone said. “What him and Juan are doing as a tandem, it is hard to wrap your brain around, especially in this hitting climate.”
Judge is also outperforming his 2022 season. At this point that year (through 84 games), he was batting .282 with 30 home runs and a .968 OPS.
Making Judge’s overall season stats even more absurd is the fact that he had started out slowly over the first few weeks.
Through 27 games, he was batting .178 with four home runs and a .674 OPS. In 57 games since, he is batting .385 with 27 home runs and a 1.381 OPS.
In June alone, he hit .409 with a 1.378 OPS, 11 home runs and 37 RBIs.
“He’s an outstanding player,” Gerrit Cole said. “He settled into the season nicely and he’s just kind of plugging away like we all expected. He’s able to go on historical runs, MVP-type runs, otherworldly-type runs. He’s just a great player.”
Besides breaking Roger Maris’ AL record with 62 home runs in 2022, Judge also led the league with 131 RBIs. But his .311 batting average — a career high — came up just short of Luis Arraez, who hit .316.
And while Judge mostly shrugs off all of his gaudy individual stats, he does place a value in having a high batting average, even if that makes him old school.
“It means we’re getting on base for the guys behind me,” Judge said. “When you’re in the middle of the order, you got to produce, you got to come up big. Especially with guys on base, especially when [Anthony] Volpe and Soto have been doing their thing all year long, you gotta just follow suit what they’re doing.”
