Aaron Judge noticed his teammates dancing in the bullpen as he rounded first. He got quite the reception when he crossed the plate too.
Not only did he hit his 300th homer, the New York Yankees’ slugger reached that milestone faster than any other player when he connected against the Chicago White Sox during a 10-2 victory Wednesday night.
“It’s a great achievement,” Judge said. “Like I said a couple days ago, I was hoping it would come in a win. It came in a big win for us. We were down for a little bit, couldn’t get much going, so I was just excited it was there in a big moment.”
Judge hit the mark in his 955th game and 3,431st at-bat with a three-run drive in the eighth inning. The six-time All-Star and 2022 American League MVP drove a 3-0 up-and-in sinker from Chad Kuhl into the White Sox bullpen in left for his major-league-leading 43rd homer.
The Yankees let loose as the ball cleared the wall, jumping up, raising their arms and banging the dugout railing. After the game, DJ LeMahieu and Austin Wells doused Judge with a tub of water.
“That means a lot,” Judge said. “These guys grind with me every single day. I know the hard work they put in. They see what I do. That was pretty special.”
Ralph Kiner reached 300 homers in his 1,087th game, and Babe Ruth did it in his 3,831st at-bat.
“Those are some guys that have done a lot of great things in this game,” Judge said. “You throw around a lot of those names to people who don’t know baseball and they know who they are. It’s a special group to be in.”
Chicago was trailing 6-2 when interim manager Grady Sizemore intentionally walked Juan Soto to bring up Judge, who had not homered on a 3-0 pitch since 2021 and now has three such home runs in his career.
“I was mad about the intentional walk, so that kind of fueled,” Judge said. “Usually 3-0, I’ll take a pitch, see a pitch, kind of pass it on to the next guy. But in that situation, if they don’t want to pitch to you, you got to come through.”
Judge leads the major leagues with 14 intentional walks. Soto was intentionally walked for the first time this season after hitting three homers Tuesday and another in the first inning Wednesday.
“It locks you in, but I get why he did it,” Judge said. “The way Juan’s been swinging the bat and what he’s done in this series, four homers, driving the ball all over the park, I’d probably walk him too in that situation.”
Sizemore, in his fifth game after replacing Pedro Grifol as manager, said the four homers by Soto caused him to make the decision.
“It’s pick your poison. I’m not trying to get to Judge. I got a base open,” Sizemore said. “There’s no solution or an easy way out of that jam, but Soto’s definitely been the hotter of those two bats, even though Judge has been hot too.”
It was just the second time in Judge’s career that the batter before him was intentionally walked. The other time was during Judge’s rookie year, on Aug. 31, 2016, when Chase Headley was intentionally walked at Kansas City in the 13th inning.
Judge, who hit an AL-record 62 homers in 2022, is batting .333 and leads the major leagues with 110 RBIs. No. 300 came eight years and one day after Judge homered in his first big league at-bat.
“Definitely caught us off guard,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of the intentional walk, “but Aaron was ready to throw up a great at-bat.
“I thought he expanded the zone a little bit too much there on 3-0,” the manager said playfully.
Judge’s home run measured 361 feet, tied for his second-shortest this season, trailing only a 339-foot one on May 19. It would not have been a home run in Yankee Stadium.
Judge is the seventh player to hit 300 home runs for the Yankees in franchise history, joining Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Alex Rodriguez.
It took Judge 671 games to reach 200 career home runs; he needed just 284 games to go from 200 to 300.
Judge became the 162nd player all time to reach 300 homers. His total ranks 13th among active players.
ESPN Stats & Information, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
