Aaron Judge can still rewrite his postseason story — but Yankees' time is running out

2024-10-09 01:35:05

NEW YORK — Aaron Judge is making history again, only this time in infamy.

After all the triumphs of his spectacular regular season, the Yankees slugger still had one pesky storyline following him into his seventh career postseason, and through the first two games of the American League Division Series, he hasn’t done much to squash the narrative that he can’t deliver in October.

Judge faced a familiar backdrop for his first at-bat of the evening Monday: 48,034 fans on their feet and screaming their heads off as he stepped into the box. That’s what he was used to this season as he tallied the most home runs (58), RBIs (144) and walks (133) in the major leagues. Game 2’s scene of thousands wearing his No. 99 pinstriped home jersey in the Bronx was similar to when he recorded the top OPS (1.159) in baseball for the second time in his career this year. Even the situation he walked up to was recognizable and typically favorable: runners on first and second with nobody out.

The one difference? It’s the playoffs.

After two competitive at-bats from Gleyber Torres and Juan Soto, each hitter drawing 6-pitch walks against Royals ace Cole Ragans, Judge struck out on four pitches and took all the juice out of the building with him. It also gave Judge the worst strikeout rate (34.3%) in MLB postseason history among hitters with at least 200 plate appearances.

Judge would draw a walk and reach on an infield single to finish the night 1-for-3. He’s 1-for-7 to start this postseason. When asked after the Yankees’ 4-2 loss to the Royals on Monday how he’s been feeling at the plate, Judge delivered a line you might have heard from him before.

“If I’m not hitting 1.000, I’m not feeling good,” he said.

Judge added that he isn’t frustrated with his results, and he doesn’t believe the Yankees’ bye week messed up his timing at the plate, particularly because he made sure to see live pitching every day while the Bronx Bombers waited for Game 1 of the ALDS.

“I think you can go back in the season and find two games out of the 162 that I go for 1-for-6, or 1-for-7 or whatever,” Judge said.

But his results so far in two games of the ALDS have delivered a reminder that this isn’t May, when Judge hit 14 home runs in 28 games. This isn’t June, when he raised his batting average to .409 and his on-base percentage to .514 across 25 incredible games. This isn’t August, when he walked 25 times in 26 games while recording a 1.386 OPS. This is October, where his career slash line is .208/.311/.449 across 46 games.

With at least two games left in the Yankees’ season, Judge has at least a handful of at-bats this week to swing out of this broad postseason slump. Perhaps, he can take solace from the fact that he is hardly the only great hitter to struggle in the playoffs. Far from it.

Barry Bonds batted .196 with a .618 OPS, struck out 20 times, and recorded just one home run through his first 27 career playoff games from 1990 to 2000. (He finally broke out in 2002 with a 1.559 OPS while slugging eight home runs in 17 games.) Hall of Famer Willie Mays hit just one home run and posted a .668 OPS in his playoff career — though teams would only play one round in the postseason during his 25 postseason games that stretched across two decades. Currently, Mookie Betts is hitless in his past 22 playoff at-bats. Bobby Witt Jr., the presumptive AL MVP runner-up to Judge, is 0-for-10 with four strikeouts in this ALDS against the Yankees.

“You can never count him out,” Soto said of Judge. “He’s the greatest hitter of all time right now. He’s just doing his thing. He struggled a little bit with the fastball today. But I know he’s going to bounce back.”

If the rest of his career is any indication, he eventually will.

Upon making his MLB debut in 2016, Judge posted a staggering 44% strikeout rate over 27 games. Following an offseason swing adjustment, Judge swatted a record 52 home runs and won the AL Rookie of the Year award. This April, he had an abysmal start to the season, batting .178 with a .674 OPS and four home runs through his first 27 games. Five months later, he’s a lock to win his second AL MVP award. But even in September, after struggling for the first three weeks and leaving the door open for Shohei Ohtani to win the home run title, Judge responded with homers in five consecutive games while finishing with the highest OPS+ (223) for a right-handed hitter in MLB history.

Judge likes to say that line about hitting 1.000 because it’s impossible to achieve that number throughout a season or a postseason, and to give us an idea of the goal — and the pressure — he has set for himself. He will never stop making adjustments in the ongoing effort to improve his game. And it’s not like it’s the pressure or the elite pitching of October that is getting to the slugger. Judge has played through the pressure of breaking Roger Maris’ American League single-season home run record when he crushed 62 in 2022. He has overcome the difficulty of playing in New York, going through a highly-publicized free agency, and following up a $360 million contract by becoming the captain of the Yankees and continuing to be the same, great hitter at the plate.

“That’s the fun thing about the playoffs, is that you’re facing the best every day,” Jazz Chisholm said. “And Judge is definitely one of the best. I think he enjoys facing all these guys. I feel like it helps him to mentally get into it, because he’s a competitor. We’re all competitors, but he’s the elite competitor. That’s why he does what he does.”

So, chalk up his postseason struggles as another part of his game that he is still improving; a narrative that he could soon flip on its head in dramatic fashion. New York heads to Kansas City with this best-of-five ALDS tied at one game apiece. There’s still time for Judge to rewrite his October story. The Yankees’ World Series hopes might depend on it.

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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