Aaron Judge did not receive a favorable strike zone in his first at-bat against Red Sox pitcher Brayan Bello on Friday night. Judge, hitting third in the order for the Yankees' second game of a weekend series against Boston, did not swing at any of the four pitches he saw in the at-bat and none of them were in the zone.
Rather than give Judge a walk, home plate umpire Lance Barrett sent him back to the dugout without having seen so much as a single strike.
Aaron Judge just struck out on zero strikes pic.twitter.com/y1UJZK7uED
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) August 22, 2025
Looking at the recap of the at-bat, none of the calls were that far outside the zone and any one of them on their own wasn't that egregious.
But when you call all three of them strikes back-to-back-to-back, it's a bad look. And more importantly, people notice.
Three called strikes in a row to Aaron Judge in his first inning strikeout.
— Max Goodman (@MaxTGoodman) August 22, 2025
Home plate umpire Lance Barrett had all three of these as strikes. pic.twitter.com/zvzpZc2hgj
This would not be the first time that the Yankees have disagreed with Barrett behind the dish.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Umpire Strikes Out Aaron Judge on Three Straight Pitches Outside the Strike Zone.
