Aaron Judge
(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

The New York Yankees and Aaron Judge have struggled to start 2019, but now they appear to have woken up against Baltimore.

Dom Renna

After tearing up Spring Training with six home runs, New York Yankees’ slugger Aaron Judge finally has liftoff in the 2019 regular season.

Facing Baltimore for the fifth time this season, Judge entered play still looking for his home run of 2019. He would take a 2-2 fastball against Dylan Bundy and crush it over the wall in center.

The home run registered an exit velocity of 110.3 mph and traveled 412 feet from home plate hitting the batter’s eye in deep center field.

Judge entered this game reaching base safely in six of the team’s first seven games but is really struggling with his strikeouts. Entering play Saturday, he’s struck out 14 times including two four-strikeout performances.

With the Yankees injury woes the last week, they are going to need Judge to start picking up some of the load offensively. Despite being a notoriously slow starter with the long ball, the Bombers could really use him to go on a home run hitting tear the next few days.

It looks like the big win Thursday has put a little spark in their bats, and they need it especially after only scoring five runs in their series against Detroit. So far the trip to Baltimore has cured their scoring woes, but there are plenty of innings left in this game.

The Yankees and Orioles are tied in the bottom of the first inning after Trey Mancini took J.A. Happ deep to right on the first pitch he saw.

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Dominick is a graduate of Canisius College. He has covered the Rangers for the last seven seasons and the Yankees for the last four.