Yankees belt NINE home runs — and Aaron Judge’s chase for 63 is on
-
David Schoenfield
Let’s get this out of the way, even if it’s way too early to even start thinking about it: Aaron Judge‘s chase for 63 is on.
In his second game of the regular season, Judge mashed three home runs, part of a franchise-record barrage of nine home runs belted by the New York Yankees in a 20-9 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers. Judge just missed a record-tying fourth home with a double off the right-field wall in the sixth inning and had another chance for a fourth home run facing position player Jake Bauers in the eighth inning but lined out to left field on a 55 mph curveball.
All in all, not a bad first Saturday of the season.
We should have known something unusual might happen. The game-time temperature at Yankee Stadium, on March 29 (!), was a balmy 78 degrees. It wasn’t a record-setting high — New York City hit 86 degrees on this date in 1945 — but the Yankees were intent on setting some records anyway.
Facing former Yankee Nestor Cortes, Paul Goldschmidt — leading off for the first time in his long career — hit a home run on the first pitch of the bottom of the first. Cody Bellinger then hit a home run on the second pitch of the inning. Judge swung at Cortes’ third pitch and destroyed a cutter 468 feet to left field, estimated exit velocity somewhere between 115 and a thousand mph. According to Statcast metrics, the home run had an expected batting average of 1.000 and was a home run in 30 out of 30 parks. Or 31 of 31 if you include the Grand Canyon.
The Yankees became the first team to hit home runs on the first three pitches they saw in a game. Austin Wells later added a fourth home run for the first four-homer inning in Yankees history.
In the understatement of the day, Judge said after the game, “Well, that was a fun inning.”
Judge and the Yankees were hardly done, however. In the third inning, facing Connor Thomas — who was making his major league debut — Judge belted a grand slam. As Tim Kurkjian pointed out on ESPN Radio, Hall of Famer Jim Palmer pitched his entire career without giving up a grand slam; Thomas allowed one in his first inning in the big leagues.
To be fair, Palmer never had to face Judge.
Judge’s third home run also came off Thomas. Judge would finish 4-for-6 with the double, three home runs, four runs and eight RBIs — his third career three-homer game and the first eight-RBI game for a Yankees player since Didi Gregorius in 2018. The fans responded with curtain calls and “M-V-P!” chants.
The Yankees would finish with nine home runs — just the third team in MLB history to hit that many. The Reds hit nine in a 1999 game against the Phillies (Yankees manager Aaron Boone happily pointed out he homered for the Reds in that game) while the Blue Jays own the record with a 10-homer game against the Orioles in 1987. Kurkjian covered that game when he was a beat writer in Baltimore, so he just missed witnessing the only two 10-homer games in MLB history.
As for Judge, it’s a booming start to the follow-up season after arguably the best year a right-handed batter ever had. He hit .322/.458/.701 with 58 home runs in 2024, with his 223 OPS+ the highest ever for a right-hander. And don’t forget — he did all that despite a slow start, hitting just .207 with six home runs through the end of April. Of course, he holds the American League record with his 62-homer season in 2022. With a hot start this month, maybe he can chase that mark from ahead of pace rather than from playing catch-up, as was the case last season, when he managed to make a good run at 62 until a 16-game homerless streak from late August into September.
Our last memory of Judge’s 2024 season, unfortunately, was his error in Game 5 of the World Series, when his dropped fly ball in center field led to the Dodgers rallying from a 5-0 deficit to clinch the World Series with a 7-6 victory. Judge also didn’t have a great postseason overall, hitting just .184 with three home runs in 14 games, whiffing 20 times. That lowered his career postseason mark to .205/.318/.450 and continued the questions of whether he can carry a team in October.
We’ll worry about that in six months. For one thing, the Yankees have to get back there, a task made more difficult with Gerrit Cole going down for the season and Luis Gil out for three months. New ace Max Fried also scuffled in his debut — despite a mountain of runs of support he couldn’t even finish five innings to get the win. The defense was sloppy with five errors, turning this game into a bit of a comedy of errors (the Yankees became just the second team in 50 years to both score 20 runs and make five errors).
One thing we learned though: Aaron Judge is still going to mash. For all the attention Shohei Ohtani has rightfully received all offseason and heading into 2025, Judge reminded us that he actually had the better offensive season in 2024. For all the preseason predictions that Bobby Witt Jr. will win the AL MVP Award in 2025, Judge reminded us that he’s a two-time MVP winner and, as wonderful as Witt was last season with 9.4 WAR, Judge was still the unanimous MVP selection.
The onslaught also showed that even minus Juan Soto, maybe this Yankees lineup will still score runs, at least as long as Judge remains healthy — and he’s averaged 142 games the last four seasons, only missing time with that toe injury in 2023. Boone said he wrestled all day yesterday with figuring out the lineup against the left-handed Cortes, settling on the unusual decision of Goldschmidt hitting leadoff. This after catcher Austin Wells hit leadoff on Opening Day against a right-handed starter. There are a lot of questions in New York’s lineup, from if the 37-year-old Goldschmidt can still produce to what rookie Jasson Dominguez will do to how much more Anthony Volpe and Wells will improve, but this may prove to be a better offense than many expect.
For now, the one certainty: Judge will be great. Sixty-three is in play.
-
Greg Wyshynski
After making NHL history during the regular season, Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin made some personal history in his team’s Game 1 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Monday.
Ovechkin scored the first playoff overtime goal of his career to propel the Capitals to a series-opening 3-2 victory at home in his 152nd career postseason game.
“A goal is a goal,” Ovechkin said after the victory. “Good things happen when you go to the net.”
Ovechkin is the all-time leader in regular-season overtime goals with 27 in 1,491 games. They’re part of his career total of 897 goals, having broken Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record of 894 goals this season.
“The guy’s the best player in the world. What else can you say?” said Capitals goaltender Logan Thompson, who made 33 saves in the win. “He comes in clutch. All game. It’s a privilege to be his teammate.”
After an icing call, Capitals forward Dylan Strome won a faceoff, with Montreal forwards Patrik Laine and Ivan Demidov failing to clear the puck. Winger Anthony Beauvillier collected the puck for a shot on goal and then tracked down his own rebound to Montreal goalie Sam Montembeault‘s right. Montreal’s Alex Newhook and Kaiden Guhle went to defend Beauvillier, who slid a pass to an open Ovechkin on the doorstep for the goal at 2:26 of overtime.
The overtime tally completed a monster night for Ovechkin.
He opened the scoring on the power play at 18:34 of the first period and then assisted on Beauvillier’s second-period goal to make it 2-0 before finishing off the pesky Canadiens in overtime. It was the 37th multipoint performance and 10th multigoal game of Ovechkin’s playoff career.
Ovechkin also had seven hits in the game to lead all skaters.
Ovechkin is the oldest skater in Stanley Cup playoff history to factor in all of his team’s goals in a game. He also became the fourth-oldest player in Cup playoff history to score an overtime goal at 39 years and 216 days. Detroit’s Igor Larionov was 41 years old when he scored a triple-overtime goal in Game 3 of the 2002 Stanley Cup Final against the Carolina Hurricanes.
With his first goal, Ovechkin passed Patrick Marleau and Esa Tikkanen (72) and tied Dino Ciccarelli (73) for the 14th-most playoff goals in NHL history. Ovechkin’s 74th career playoff goal put him in a tie with Joe Pavelski for the 13th-most career playoff goals.
The captain’s overtime heroism rescued Game 1 for the Capitals. The top seed in the Eastern Conference watched the Canadiens rally in the third period on goals by Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki 5:13 apart to send the game to overtime.
“You can see why they made the playoffs. That team doesn’t quit,” Thompson said. “In the third, they didn’t go away. We’ve got to respect them. They took it to us in the third.”
But rather than give Montreal some much-needed confidence and a series lead in its upset bid, Ovechkin shut the door in overtime.
“He played a hell of game tonight,” Beauvillier said.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway