1. Earlier this week, Juan Soto went out of his way to call Aaron Judge “the best hitter in baseball” and essentially told the world he misses being a Yankee.
During the three-game series against the Royals, Judge went out of his way to make his former teammate’s claim stand up. Judge went 2-for-4 on Monday, 2-for-3 with a walk on Tuesday and then 3-for-3 with a double, home run and walk on Wednesday. That home run (Judge’s first in 10 games) was a go-ahead shot to lead off the seventh. It gave the Yankees a 4-3 lead and was enough to carry them to a series sweep.
“I just feel like, in any situation, he’s going to come out on top,” Cody Bellinger said. “He’s the best player on this planet.”
2. Judge also scored 25 percent of the Yankees’ runs in the series and is now hitting .409/.519/.803 on the season. He joins Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle and Paul O’Neill as the only other Yankees to have a .400 batting average, .800 slugging percentage, 20 RBIs and 10 walks through the team’s first 18 games of the season (per Katie Sharp).
“I want to get on base. That’s the biggest thing, hitting in the middle of the order and hitting second a lot,” Judge said. “I’ve got to touch first base. That’s my job.”
3. Judge touched ‘em all with his seventh-inning shot off of John Schreiber. His late-game heroics were made possible because of another solid pitching performance from the Yankees staff. Clarke Schmidt made his season debut and wasn’t as good as Carlos Carrasco was on Monday or Max Fried was on Tuesday, but he was good enough (5.2 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 2 K) to get into the sixth inning on a night when the bullpen was shorthanded.
“The whole rotation has to step up,” Schmidt said. “I know that my job is to go out there and be as consistent as possible every five days and give my team a chance to win.”
4. Going into the game without Luke Weaver and Devin Williams (to a lesser degree) meant a close game may get tense and trusting Aaron Boone to push the right buttons without his best arms available would likely prove challenging. Boone went to Mark Leiter Jr. for four outs and Fernando Cruz for a two-inning save, and it all worked out.
5. It all worked out thanks to Cody Bellinger’s lead-saving catch with two outs in the ninth when he laid out in right field to prevent a game-tying extra-base hit.
“That’s the reason he’s got gold on his glove,” Judge said. “Very few people make that catch, especially in a big moment like that with the game on the line.”
Bellinger has been atrocious at the plate (.538 OPS), but managed to sneak a hard-hit ground ball inside of first base for an RBI double in the fourth and let his defense make up for his bat with the spectacular grab in the ninth.
“That might be my first game-saving catch,” Bellinger said. “I was just glad I was able to catch it and get the win.”
6. Anthony Volpe had a big, two-run double in the third to cap off a two-out rally. There’s nothing better than a two-out rally. Nothing. Judge doubled, Jazz Chisholm walked and then Volpe crushed a ball to left to score both runners. The Yankees managed to score three runs (on seven hits and four walks) off of Kris Bubic after he had allowed just two earned runs in his first three starts and 18 2/3 innings.
7. Chisholm had that third-inning walk to go along with a single to center off the end of his bat in the first. (He was also hit by a pitch in the seventh.) The first-inning single was the first non-home run hit for Chisholm since the series finale in Pittsburgh 10 days prior.
8. A night after going 3-for-3 with the game-changing, three-run double, Jasson Dominguez went 0-for-3 with a walk, but he did get to play all nine innings of the game with Judge as the designated hitter. No balls were to hit to Dominguez in the eighth or ninth after Judge made it a one-run game.
9. The Yankees have been playing with three near-automatic outs in their lineup in Bellinger, Chisholm and Austin Wells, and yet, they lead the American League in runs scored with 107 and a plus-24 run differential. (Thanks, Brewers.) The lineup has been heavily reliant on Judge, Ben Rice, Paul Goldschmidt and Trent Grisham (when he plays) and some timely hitting from Volpe and Dominguez. The Yankees need their three “everyday” left-handed bats to contribute, especially this weekend in Tampa.
10. It’s off to Steinbrenner Field where the Yankees will be visitors at their own place. (Maybe a trip back to spring training is what Bellinger needs to get going after he had a 1.214 OPS in 19 games during spring training.) It will be Will Warren against Taj Bradley. Now in his third season, Bradley has made two starts against the Yankees over the last two years, holding them to one run over 13 innings and a .331 OPS. But he has never faced the Yankees at their spring training home in real game where they are accustomed to playing and where the ball has been flying out of this season.
Last modified: Apr 17, 2025
