LOS ANGELES — Every two weeks, from 2017 through the 2024 season, Richard Schenck visited Aaron Judge to help refine his superstar pupil’s swing. But they haven’t met at all this season. There hasn’t been a need.

“The darn swing is pretty much automatic,” said Schenck, a hitting instructor based in Missouri. “There’s no thinking anymore. There’s just see ball, hit ball. And when he swings the bat, the good swing comes out. No tuneup needed.”

Thorough upkeeping isn’t required as Judge builds on the best 13-month regular-season stretch from a right-handed hitter in Major League Baseball history. There are a few reasons for the New York Yankees slugger’s otherworldly success — from swing optimization to accumulated experience — but there’s one factor that matters most: Judge, a towering behemoth hampered by injuries early in his career, is staying on the field as he enters his mid-30s.

“I think that’s the biggest thing, is getting a chance to just play every single day and I can make those adjustments,” said Judge, who celebrated his 33rd birthday last month and became a father in January. “If I have a couple bad games, I can make an adjustment, figure it out and get to work.

“When you get hurt, your main focus is getting back on the field and when you get back on the field now it’s, ‘My swing ain’t right’ because I’ve missed out on 120, 150 at-bats. So, I think that’s been the biggest thing for me.”

Judge crushed 52 home runs in 155 games as a rookie in 2017, but injuries followed. From 2018, Judge’s second full season, through the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, the slugger appeared in just 63% of the Yankees’ regular-season games. He landed on the injured list four times with wrist, oblique and calf injuries (plus another stint after a positive COVID-19 test).

From the start of the 2021 season through the Yankees’ 1-0 win over the Los Angeles Angels on Thursday, he has appeared in 89% of their games. The percentage would be higher were it not for a freak injury nearly two years ago.

This weekend, the Yankees return to Dodger Stadium for a World Series rematch against the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was here, in June 2023, that Judge suffered a torn ligament in his right big toe crashing into a bullpen gate in right field to make a catch. Judge missed 42 games. The Yankees, consequently, crashed without him. They didn’t reach the postseason and nearly finished below .500 for the first time in more than 30 years. He hasn’t been on the injured list since.

For all the jaw-dropping numbers, Yankees manager Aaron Boone believes Judge’s ability to remain in the lineup is where the two-time American League MVP has shown the most growth.

“I think it really pissed him off,” Boone said of Judge consistently missing time. “The thing he’s done so well the last few years is there’s been days where he’s played every day, where in the past I would’ve given him a day. He knows how to do that now.”

Keeping healthy means Judge isn’t stopping and starting, again and again. He’s not constantly looking to find his swing, his rhythm, his confidence. He is making revisions on the fly, incorporating what he has learned and barreling forward, punishing pitchers in the process.

“It’s all about staying on the field,” Judge said. “You stay on the field and you’re going to produce. And I was kind of sick and tired of having little nagging things that kind of pop up throughout the season. So if I was going to do something that my team could rely on for quite a few years, you can’t be playing only 100 games a year. So I made a couple of changes and here we are.”

Among those changes, Judge said he began avoiding sweets and hired a year-round chef. To maintain his explosiveness, he incorporates jumping into his workouts and makes sure to reach his top speed during his pregame routine. Listed at 6-foot-7, 282 pounds, an unprecedented size for an every-day outfielder, Judge said he has reached out to football players for advice on staying healthy as he grows older.

“Nobody to put on record,” Judge said with a grin when asked if he could share any names. “But you see around the sport, there’s a lot of guys that play into their 40s and continue to play at a high level and that’s kind of something I wanted.

“I invest in, if it’s trainers, food, paying for a chef. It may seem like that’s an expense you don’t need to pay for, but I think it all works out. You get to the back end, if it’s going to help me play another 30 games or if it’s another three years, I’ll take anything.”

Judge enters Friday’s series opener in Los Angeles as the early favorite to win his third AL MVP Award in four seasons. He claimed his first in 2022 when he clubbed an AL-record 62 home runs. He earned it again last season when he moved to center field to accommodate Juan Soto despite a relatively sluggish start. This year, back in right field without Soto around, he’s better than ever, batting .395 with 18 home runs and a 1.234 OPS — and playing in all 54 games for the first-place Yankees.

First baseman Paul Goldschmidt, one of Judge’s new teammates this season, won the 2022 National League MVP Award with the St. Louis Cardinals in his age-34 season. He’s one of 16 players to win an MVP at that age or older. He understands the work necessary to maintain elite performance. How the body changes and the grind becomes increasingly difficult as the years pass.

“What he’s doing is amazing,” Goldschmidt said. “It’s definitely harder as you get older and you’re in your mid- or late 30s. I think it can obviously still be done and guys have produced at a high level. And I think he can and will do that. It’s like almost Barry Bondish where it’s like he’s getting one pitch to hit a game and he’s hitting it. Everyone knows he’s one of the best, if not the best hitter on the planet.”

Since April 27 of last year, Judge leads the majors with a mind-blowing 244 wRC+ — (Shohei Ohtani‘s 178 is second) and 15.8 fWAR (Bobby Witt Jr. is second with 11.7) during the regular season. He’s hitting .365 with 72 home runs, 178 RBIs and a 1.253 OPS in 186 games while missing just four. It’s an output not seen since peak Bonds in the early 2000s. And they’re numbers the Yankees did not envision before Judge’s historic 2022 season.

Back then, with Judge coming off his first healthy campaign in four years and entering his platform season, the club offered him a seven-year, $213.5 million contract extension. Judge rejected the offer. The next winter — an 11.1 fWAR season and 62 home runs later — he declined more money on the West Coast to sign a nine-year, $360 million deal to return to the Bronx as the Yankees’ captain.

It was, at the time, the highest average annual salary ever given to a position player. Judge was about to commence his age-31 season. His injury history indicated the Yankees were taking a risk. But it has proved to be among the shrewdest bargains in the sport because, above all, Judge is staying on the field.

“Going back to a couple of years before I signed my deal, I never wanted to be a guy that was on the IL for the whole deal,” Judge said. “I wanted to be a guy that the team could depend on. I wanted to be a cornerstone person that when people come to the ballpark and when they turn on the game to watch the Yankees, I’m there every single night. So, I just want to take pride in that and take pride in my work.”

HOUSTON — Soon after Lance McCullers Jr.’s family received online death threats following a tough start by the Astros pitcher, his 5-year-old daughter, Ava, overheard wife Kara talking on the phone about it.

What followed was a painful conversation between McCullers and his little girl.

“She asked me when I came home: ‘Daddy, like, what is threats? Who wants to hurt us? Who wants to hurt me?'” McCullers told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “So those conversations are tough to deal with.”

McCullers is one of two MLB pitchers whose families have received online death threats this month as internet abuse of players and their families is on the rise. Boston Red Sox reliever Liam Hendriks took to social media soon after the incident with McCullers to call out people who were threatening Hendriks’ wife’s life and directing “vile” comments at him.

The Astros contacted MLB security and the Houston Police Department following the threats to McCullers. A police spokesperson said Thursday that it remains an ongoing investigation.

McCullers, who has two young daughters, took immediate action after the threats and hired 24-hour security for his family.

“You have to at that point,” he said.

Players from the league agree that online abuse has gotten progressively worse in recent years. Milwaukee‘s Christian Yelich, a 13-year veteran and the 2018 National League MVP, said receiving online abuse is “a nightly thing” for most players.

“I think over the last few years it’s definitely increased,” he said. “It’s increased to the point that you’re just: ‘All right, here we go.’ It doesn’t even really register on your radar anymore. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. You’re just so used to that on a day-to-day, night-to-night basis. It’s not just me. It’s everybody in here, based on performance.”

And many players believe it’s directly linked to the rise in legalized sports betting.

“You get a lot of DMs or stuff like that about you ruining someone’s bet or something ridiculous like that,” veteran Red Sox reliever Justin Wilson said. “I guess they should make better bets.”

Hendriks, a 36-year-old reliever who previously underwent treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, said on Instagram that he and his wife received death threats after a loss to the New York Mets. He added that people left comments saying that they wished he would have died from cancer, among other abusive comments.

“Enough is enough,” he said. “Like at some point, everyone just like sucking up and dealing with it isn’t accomplishing anything. And we pass along to security. We pass along to whoever we need to, but nothing ends up happening. And it happens again the next night.

“And so, at some point, someone has to make a stand. And it’s one of those things where, the more eyes we get on it, the more voices we get talking about it, hopefully it can push it in the right direction.”

Both the Astros and the Red Sox are working with MLB security to take action against social media users who direct threats toward players and their families. Red Sox spokesperson Abby Murphy said they have taken steps in recent years to make sure players’ families are safe during games. That includes security staff and Boston police stationed in the family section at home and dedicated security in the traveling party to monitor the family section on the road.

“I think over the last few years it’s definitely increased. It’s increased to the point that you’re just: ‘All right, here we go.’ It doesn’t even really register on your radar anymore. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. You’re just so used to that on a day-to-day, night-to-night basis. It’s not just me. It’s everybody in here, based on performance.”

Christian Yelich, on players receiving threatening messages

Murphy said identifying those who make anonymous threats online is difficult, but “both the Red Sox and MLB have cyber programs and analysts dedicated to identifying and removing these accounts.”

The Astros have uniformed police officers stationed in the family section, a practice that was implemented well before the threats to McCullers and his family.

For some players, online abuse has gotten so bad that they have abandoned social media. Detroit Tigers All-Star outfielder Riley Greene said he got off social media because he received so many messages from people blaming him for failed bets.

“I deleted it,” he said of Instagram. “I’m off it. It sucks, but it’s the world we live in, and we can’t do anything about it. People would DM me and say nasty things, tell me how bad of a player I am and say nasty stuff that we don’t want to hear.”

The 31-year-old McCullers, who returned this year after missing two full seasons with injuries, said dealing with this has been the worst thing that has happened in his career. He understands the passion of fans and knows that being criticized for a poor performance is part of the game. But he believes there’s a “moral line” that fans shouldn’t cross.

“People should want us to succeed,” he said. “We want to succeed, but it shouldn’t come at a cost to our families, the kids in our life, having to feel like they’re not safe where they live or where they sit at games.”

Astros manager Joe Espada was livid when he learned about the threats to McCullers and his family and was visibly upset when he addressed what happened with reporters.

Espada said the team has mental health professionals available to the players to talk about the toll such abuse takes on them and any other issues they may be dealing with.

“We are aware that when we step on the field, fans expect and we expect the best out of ourselves,” Espada said this week. “But when we are trying to do our best and things don’t go our way while we’re trying to give you everything we got and now you’re threatening our families and kids — now I do have a big issue with that, right? I just did not like it.”

Kansas City‘s Salvador Perez, a 14-year MLB veteran, hasn’t experienced online abuse but was appalled by what happened to McCullers. If something like that happened to him, he said, it would change the way he interacts with fans.

“Now some fans, real fans, they’re going to pay for that too,” he said. “Because if I was him, I wouldn’t take a picture or sign anything for nobody because of that one day.”

McCullers wouldn’t go that far but admitted it has changed his mindset.

“It does make you kind of shell up a little bit,” he said. “It does make you kind of not want to go places. I guess that’s just probably the human reaction to it.”

While most players have dealt with some level of online abuse in their careers, no one has a good idea of how to stop it.

“I’m thankful I’m not in a position where I have to find a solution to this,” Tigers pitcher Tyler Holton said. “But as a person who is involved in this, I wish this wasn’t a topic of conversation.”

Chicago White Sox outfielder Mike Tauchman is disheartened at how bad player abuse has gotten. While it’s mostly online, he said he has had teammates that have had racist and homophobic things yelled at them during games.

“Outside of just simply not having social media, I really don’t see that getting better before it just continues to get worse,” he said. “I mean, I think it’s kind of the way things are now. Like, people just feel like they have the right to say whatever they want to whoever they want and it’s behind a keyboard and there’s really no repercussions, right?”

The Los Angeles Angels will activate superstar outfielder Mike Trout before Friday’s game against the Cleveland Guardians, the start of a six-game road trip.

Trout, 33, has been out since sustaining a contusion on his surgically repaired left knee while trying to beat out an infield single on April 30. Since then, Trout has slowly ramped back up to full baseball activities, running the bases and facing a minor league pitcher at Angel Stadium earlier this week. A rehab assignment was not deemed necessary.

The Angels split their 26 games without Trout, most recently following an eight-game winning streak with a five-game losing streak. All told, their offense ranks 11th in runs per game, 17th in OPS and last in walk-to-strikeout ratio.

A three-time MVP who was by far the most dominant player of the 2010s, Trout played in only 41% of the Angels’ games from 2021 to 2024 and was off to a subpar start in 2025, accumulating nine home runs in 29 games but slashing only .179/.264/.462.

Matthew Lugo was optioned to Triple-A on Thursday in order to make room on the active roster for Trout.

With Trout back in right field — the position he transitioned to in spring training, after an entire career spent in center — Jorge Soler will likely go back to being the full-time designated hitter. Jo Adell and the newly acquired Chris Taylor are the primary options in center.

The Southern California News Group first reported Trout’s impending return.