Yankees slugger Aaron Judge has put together one of the most impressive offensive performances of all time. But as we’ve seen over these last couple of weeks, he’s also human.
Through the first two weeks of September, nobody could retire the outfielder. Once he hit his 60th home run of the season, though, things started to slow down. Opposing pitchers got even more careful with him, his walk rate skyrocketed, and he began getting fewer and fewer pitches to actually do damage with.
That hasn’t stopped him from tying Roger Maris with 61 home runs, but it’s been a lot harder for him to get over the hump. The damage has been done regarding the single-season offensive leaderboards, though. Just one look at his Baseball-Reference page shows how dominant he’s been.
Here’s what Judge leads at least the American League through 689 plate appearances prior to Tuesday’s games:
- Home runs (61)
- RBI (130)
- Runs scored (131)
- Walks (111)
- On-base percentage (.426)
- Slugging percentage (.686)
- OPS (1.112)
- OPS+ (212)
- Total bases (386)
The one thing missing from this list is Judge’s batting average. He enters action with a .311 mark in that department, trailing only Luis Arraez of the Minnesota Twins. The utility fielder leads the AL with a .315 average.
However, Arraez hasn’t played since October 1st with a hamstring injury. There’s a chance he won’t suit up again, giving Judge a stable target to go after over New York’s final three regular-season games. At this point in the season, though, making up that much ground in batting average is tough.
Here’s what Judge would have to do to overtake Arraez for the batting title and to secure the triple crown:
Judge BA: .31083
Arraez, sitting out with hamstring injury, has a BA of .31550
Judge hits needed to win Triple Crown, if Arraez doesn’t play again:
7 Judge AB left: 5 H
8 AB: 6 H
9 AB: 6 H
10 AB: 6 H
11 AB: 7 H
12 AB: 7 H
13 AB: 7 H
14 AB: 8 H
15 AB: 8 H— Jeremy Frank (@MLBRandomStats) October 4, 2022
Yea, that’s going to be tough based on how things have gone the last couple of weeks. Before going 1-for-4 on Monday night in Texas against the Rangers, Judge did post a 188 wRC+ in 49 plate appearances after hitting number 60. However, that was engineered mostly by a .533 on-base percentage and a 36.7% walk rate. His batting average during that time was .233.
Judge may not care too much about it (nor should he), but it’d be cool to see him capture a triple crown while hitting 60-plus homers. Who knows — he could get hot and still do it. If there’s anything we’ve learned about him this season, it’s that he could get hot at any moment.
Matt Musico can be reached at matt.musico@xlmedia.com and you can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
