With all due respect to the former Yankees' captain, we have to disagree with Joe Girardi's recent comparison of Aaron Judge to Derek Jeter. Beyond wearing pinstripes, and the team-first, even-keel attitude, that's where the similarity ends. And the divergence is not a bad thing.
Let Judge be Judge. Saddling him with the Jeter name, and the five-ring fame, is too much, too soon for a player that just turned 25 a week ago. Judge is a 6-7, baseball-wrecking homer-machine that doesn't share much in common with anyone in the sport, aside from maybe Giancarlo Stanton.
He further separated himself from the pack during Wednesday night's 8-6 comeback victory by walloping his 13th home run, the first rookie in history to reach that number 25 games into a season, according to Elias Sports Bureau. That also leads the majors, and came only a matter of hours after Judge was named the AL's Player of the Month for April (.303 BA, 10 HRs, 1.161 OPS). Based on what he's done since, maybe the league's powers-that-be can cut to the chase and give him the May award, too.
This month is only three days old, and Judge already has three home runs, along with one smashed big-screen TV on his resume, the result of a Tuesday batting-practice bomb that sailed into the stadium's new outfield patio area. It's not supposed to look this easy. But Judge's larger-than-life plate persona is well-balanced with a humble mindset that should help shield him from the inevitable bumps along the way. When asked Wednesday about his thunderous start, Judge said he would have "laughed" at anyone who suggested this before the season.
"I just try to come in here and do my work and prepare the right way and do whatever I can to help the team," Judge said. "That's what I'm trying to do."
Well, he's done all of that, and considerably more, in launching the Yankees to a surprising 17-9 start. Why the Blue Jays' Marcus Stroman decided to mess around with him in the third inning Wednesday night is anyone's guess. But with Toronto up 6-3, and Starlin Castro on first after a leadoff single, Stroman boxed himself into a perilous spot by quickly falling behind in the count.
As any opposing pitcher knows by now, 2-and-0 is not a neighborhood you want to be in with Judge, and Stroman's next pitch, a 94-mph two-seam fastball, wound up leaving a vapor trail on its 435-foot flight onto the netting above Monument Park. Coming off a two-homer Tuesday, Judge was not a hitter to be challenged at that moment. And his surging confidence is only making him more dangerous.
"This year, I've had more of an aggressive approach and I've tried to attack something that's in the middle of the field," Judge said before Wednesday's game. "Last year, I was more trying to see ball, then hit ball when knowing it was going to be in the zone that I was looking for. Now I'm staying more aggressive."
Is it really that simple? The stunning frequency of Judge's moonshots suggests that something has clicked for him. And despite his massive frame, Judge is good for more than just winning longest-drive contests. His tape-measure home run was sandwiched by a pair of a singles, and his second one sparked the rally that put the Yankees ahead, 7-6, in the seventh inning. With one out, Judge fell behind 1-and-2 to Jays reliever Joe Biagini, then stayed with an 88-mph changeup, reaching to poke the pitch into shallow left field. He later came around to score the tying run on Chris Carter's soft single over the shortstop's head.
At this rate, Judge is soaring up the learning curve, and Wednesday marked the first three-hit night of his young career. Over the seven-game homestand, he batted .524 (11-for-21) with six home runs and 12 RBIs.
"The good thing about him is you can tell from his demeanor and his attitude that he wants to improve," said Jeter, a self-proclaimed Judge fan, during an interview posted on Yankees.com.
If Judge gets any better, the only comp left will be Babe Ruth.
