Aaron Judge’s Explosive Start: Yankees’ Home Run Frenzy and the Chase for 63
Let’s dive right into the excitement, even if it feels a bit premature to start dreaming about it: Aaron Judge‘s pursuit of 63 home runs is officially underway.
In just his second game of the regular season, Judge put on a show, smashing three home runs as part of a record-setting nine-homer performance by the New York Yankees in a commanding 20-9 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers. Judge came tantalizingly close to a fourth home run, hitting a double off the right-field wall in the sixth inning. He had another shot at a fourth homer against position player Jake Bauers in the eighth inning but ended up lining out to left field on a 55 mph curveball.
Not a bad way to spend the first Saturday of the season, wouldn’t you agree?
The day was set for something special. The game-time temperature at Yankee Stadium was an unseasonably warm 78 degrees on March 29. While it wasn’t a record high—New York City hit 86 degrees on this date back in 1945—the Yankees were clearly in the mood to set some records of their own.
Facing former Yankee Nestor Cortes, Paul Goldschmidt, leading off for the first time in his career, hit a home run on the first pitch of the bottom of the first inning. Cody Bellinger followed with a home run on the second pitch. Judge then swung at Cortes’ third pitch and sent a cutter 468 feet to left field, with an estimated exit velocity somewhere between 115 and a thousand mph. According to Statcast metrics, this home run had an expected batting average of 1.000 and would have been a home run in all 30 MLB parks—or even 31 if you count the Grand Canyon.
The Yankees became the first team to hit home runs on the first three pitches they saw in a game. Austin Wells later added a fourth home run, marking the first four-homer inning in Yankees history.
In what might be the understatement of the day, Judge commented after the game, “Well, that was a fun inning.”
But Judge and the Yankees weren’t finished. In the third inning, facing Connor Thomas, who was making his major league debut, Judge hit a grand slam. As Tim Kurkjian noted on ESPN Radio, Hall of Famer Jim Palmer pitched his entire career without giving up a grand slam; Thomas allowed one in his first inning in the big leagues.
To be fair, Palmer never had to face Judge.
Judge’s third home run also came off Thomas. He finished the game 4-for-6 with a double, three home runs, four runs, and eight RBIs—his third career three-homer game and the first eight-RBI game for a Yankees player since Didi Gregorius in 2018. The fans responded with curtain calls and “M-V-P!” chants.
The Yankees ended the game with nine home runs, becoming just the third team in MLB history to hit that many. The Reds hit nine in a 1999 game against the Phillies (Yankees manager Aaron Boone happily pointed out he homered for the Reds in that game), while the Blue Jays hold the record with a 10-homer game against the Orioles in 1987. Kurkjian covered that game when he was a beat writer in Baltimore, so he just missed witnessing the only two 10-homer games in MLB history.
As for Judge, it’s a booming start to the follow-up season after arguably the best year a right-handed batter ever had. He hit .322/.458/.701 with 58 home runs in 2024, with his 223 OPS+ the highest ever for a right-hander. And don’t forget—he did all that despite a slow start, hitting just .207 with six home runs through the end of April. Of course, he holds the American League record with his 62-homer season in 2022. With a hot start this month, maybe he can chase that mark from ahead of pace rather than from playing catch-up, as was the case last season, when he managed to make a good run at 62 until a 16-game homerless streak from late August into September.
Our last memory of Judge’s 2024 season, unfortunately, was his error in Game 5 of the World Series, when his dropped fly ball in center field led to the Dodgers rallying from a 5-0 deficit to clinch the World Series with a 7-6 victory. Judge also didn’t have a great postseason overall, hitting just .184 with three home runs in 14 games, whiffing 20 times. That lowered his career postseason mark to .205/.318/.450 and continued the questions of whether he can carry a team in October.
We’ll worry about that in six months. For one thing, the Yankees have to get back there, a task made more difficult with Gerrit Cole going down for the season and Luis Gil out for three months. New ace Max Fried also scuffled in his debut—despite a mountain of runs of support, he couldn’t even finish five innings to get the win. The defense was sloppy with five errors, turning this game into a bit of a comedy of errors (the Yankees became just the second team in 50 years to both score 20 runs and make five errors).
One thing we learned though: Aaron Judge is still going to mash. For all the attention Shohei Ohtani has rightfully received all offseason and heading into 2025, Judge reminded us that he actually had the better offensive season in 2024. For all the preseason predictions that Bobby Witt Jr. will win the AL MVP Award in 2025, Judge reminded us that he’s a two-time MVP winner and, as wonderful as Witt was last season with 9.4 WAR, Judge was still the unanimous MVP selection.
The onslaught also showed that even minus Juan Soto, maybe this Yankees lineup will still score runs, at least as long as Judge remains healthy—and he’s averaged 142 games the last four seasons, only missing time with that toe injury in 2023. Boone said he wrestled all day yesterday with figuring out the lineup against the left-handed Cortes, settling on the unusual decision of Goldschmidt hitting leadoff. This after catcher Austin Wells hit leadoff on Opening Day against a right-handed starter. There are a lot of questions in New York’s lineup, from if the 37-year-old Goldschmidt can still produce to what rookie Jasson Dominguez will do to how much more Anthony Volpe and Wells will improve, but this may prove to be a better offense than many expect.
For now, the one certainty: Judge will be great. Sixty-three is in play.
- Yankees hit nine home runs in a single game.
- Aaron Judge hits three home runs, including a grand slam.
- Yankees set a franchise record with four home runs in the first inning.
- Judge’s chase for 63 home runs is on.
Originally Written by: David Schoenfield
