61 years since 61.
Aaron Judge has written his name alongside Roger Maris in baseball's record books. pic.twitter.com/1V4Gums34C
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) September 29, 2022
And Aaron Judge has done it! More than 60 years after Roger Maris passed Babe Ruth with his 61st home run, another Yankees slugger finally joins him.
Judge’s march toward franchise history has been quite smooth based on his September production, even with his recent seven-game homerless streak. This is already his 10th home run of the month, which is something he’s done quite a bit during 2022. After starting the year with six homers in April, he rattled off three straight months of double-digit homers.
He failed to hit at least 10 in August, but he came awfully close by slugging nine. So, if you don’t want to do that math at home, Judge has hit at least 10 homers in four of the six months of the regular season. And it would’ve been five straight if he squeezed in one more dinger last month. Clearly, he was slacking (/sarcasm).
Now that he’s tied with Maris on the home run leaderboard, only three hitters have enjoyed more powerful campaigns than him: Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa.
MLB single-season home run leaders:
- Barry Bonds, 2001: 73
- Mark McGwire, 1998: 70
- Sammy Sosa, 1998: 66
- Mark McGwire, 1999: 65
- Sammy Sosa, 2001: 64
- Sammy Sosa, 1999: 63
- Roger Maris, 1961: 61
- Aaron Judge, 2022: 61
Could this just be the continuation of a career full of home-run milestones? We’ll see, but after this and also becoming the first rookie to post a 50-homer season in 2017, he’s building quite the resume.
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Matt Musico can be reached at matt.musico@xlmedia.com and you can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
