Judge homers off Red Sox rookie after jab at Yanks
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — The Yankees–Red Sox rivalry, a historic feud running on fumes in recent years, received a light jolt from a rookie this weekend — and Aaron Judge took notice.
Boston right-hander Hunter Dobbins, a lifelong Red Sox fan from Texas and the team’s starting pitcher Sunday, told the Boston Herald on Saturday that he’d rather retire if the Yankees were the last team to give him a contract.
Judge said he was unaware of the comment until ESPN’s Eduardo Pérez relayed it to him before Sunday’s series finale.
“I’ve only heard Ken Griffey say that, so I was a little surprised,” Judge said.
A few hours later, the Yankees captain smashed the first pitch he saw from Dobbins — a 98 mph fastball up and over the plate — for a mammoth two-run homer. The ball traveled 436 feet at 108.6 mph to right-center field. It was the second-longest opposite-field home run of Judge’s career, 2 feet short of the longest, according to MLB researcher Sarah Langs.
After the game, an 11-7 loss for the Yankees, Judge admitted stepping into the batter’s box with Dobbins’ comment in mind.
“Well, once somebody tells you, yeah,” Judge said.
Griffey, a first-ballot Hall of Famer, insisted he would never have played for the Yankees during his career because of the way he and his father were treated by the organization during Ken Griffey Sr.’s time with the Yankees. Ken Griffey Sr. spent four-plus seasons in the Bronx in the 1980s.
During an in-game interview on ESPN, Jazz Chisholm Jr., who before the game vouched for more trash-talking in baseball on social media, said he appreciated Dobbins’ competitiveness but thought the comment was outlandish.
“I love competitiveness,” he said. “But to say that, being a rookie, is kind of crazy to me, to say that you’re going to rule out one out of 30 teams to be a professional athlete.”
Dobbins rebounded from Judge’s blast to hold the Yankees to three runs on four hits through five innings despite not recording a strikeout as Boston took two of three games in the rivals’ first series of the season.
An eighth-round pick in 2021, Dobbins has a 4.20 ERA in 10 appearances (eight starts) with the Red Sox.
Judge added another two-run homer in the ninth inning Sunday against right-hander Robert Stock for the final runs of the game.
It was the reigning American League MVP’s 43rd career multihomer game, tying Lou Gehrig for third in franchise history. Babe Ruth (68) and Mickey Mantle (46) top the list.
“Any time you get mentioned with those legends, it’s quite an honor,” said Judge, who is batting .396 with a 1.264 OPS and now has 23 home runs this season. “But it would’ve been sweeter to talk about it after a win.”
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — The Yankees are acquiring third baseman Ryan McMahon from the Rockies in exchange for minor league pitchers Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz, sources confirmed to ESPN on Friday.
The Yankees will assume the remainder of 30-year-old McMahon’s contract, which includes approximately $4.5 million for the remainder of 2025 and $32 million over the next two seasons.
An All-Star last season, McMahon was batting .217 with 16 home runs and a .717 OPS in 100 games for Colorado in 2025. He hit home runs in the first two games after the All-Star break and another on Tuesday and is on pace to keep his four-year 20-homer streak alive.
While the production has resulted in a 92 OPS+, which suggests McMahon has been 8% worse than the average major league hitter this season, he still represents a significant offensive upgrade at third base for New York.
The Yankees have had Oswald Peraza, one of the worst hitters in the majors, manning third base nearly every day since the club decided to release DJ LeMahieu, another former Rockies player, earlier this month and move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base. Peraza, while a strong defender, is slashing .147/.208/.237 in 69 games this season. His 24 wRC+ ranks last among the 310 hitters with at least 160 plate appearances this season.
Defensively, McMahon is a Gold Glove-caliber third baseman whose four Outs Above Average is third in the majors this season. He joins a Yankees club that has been marred by sloppy defense, most recently on Wednesday when it committed four errors in a defensive meltdown against the first-place Toronto Blue Jays.
Herring, 22, has recorded a 1.71 ERA in 89⅓ innings across 16 starts between Low- and High-A this season. He was a sixth-round pick out of LSU in the 2024 draft.
Grosz, an 11th-round pick in 2023, had a 4.14 ERA in 87 innings over 16 games (15 starts) for High-A Hudson Valley this season.
With third base addressed, the Yankees will continue to seek to acquire pitchers to bolster both their rotation and bullpen.
MLB.com first reported on the Yankees trading for McMahon.
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Jorge Castillo
The Mets acquired left-handed reliever Gregory Soto from the Orioles on Friday in exchange for two minor leaguers in what could be the first of multiple moves by New York to bolster its bullpen before the trade deadline Thursday.
The trade, which sent Class A right-hander Wellington Aracena and Double-A right-hander Cameron Foster to Baltimore, gives the Mets a hard-throwing left-hander to complement the club’s only lefty on the roster, Brooks Raley, who returned from Tommy John surgery last week.
Soto, who is 30 and was an All-Star with the Detroit Tigers in 2021 and 2022, has posted a 3.96 ERA with a 27.5% strikeout rate in 45 appearances this season. The Mets will be his fourth team since the 2022 season.
On Monday, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns plainly signaled that upgrading the bullpen for the stretch run is his top priority.
The need is clear. Injuries and overuse have depleted a relief corps that led the majors in bullpen ERA through May 31. Since June 1, the group has posted 4.52 ERA, good for 23rd in the majors.
Aracena, 20, is 1-1 with a 2.38 ERA in 17 games for St. Lucie. The Orioles said he is one of two pitchers in the minors this season to have thrown at least 60 innings without surrendering a home run.
Foster, 26, is 5-2 with two saves and a 2.97 ERA while pitching at the Double-A and Triple-A levels.
BOSTON — Hundreds of Aramark workers at Fenway Park are on strike and planning to stay out for all of a homestand between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers starting Friday night.
Concession workers had set a deadline of noon Friday for Aramark and Fenway Park to reach an agreement with the Local 26 chapter of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island hotel, casino, airport and food services workers union.
The union went on strike at noon asking for “living wages, guardrails on technology and R-E-S-P-E-C-T!”
With the Red Sox and Dodgers scheduled to start at 7:10 p.m. EDT, union officials had a request for fans attending this homestand with food and beer workers on strike.
“We’re asking you to NOT buy concessions inside the ballpark,” Local 26 wrote on social media. “Tailgate before the games!”
Union workers walked the picket line wearing green T-shirts declaring “FENWAY WORKERS ON STRIKE.” They carried signs in the shape of a baseball proclaiming Local 26.
The Red Sox go out of town Monday with a game that night at Minnesota.
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