Has Aaron Judge Emerged From Recent Slump?

The Yankees salvaged the final game against the Tigers after a horrendous couple of one-sided losses, and Aaron Judge - who really needs to get going - perhaps started to on Thursday with a pair of home runs. Still, this was not a promising series and further illuminated New York’s difficulties when it faces the better teams. Lets get to it.

We are still three weeks from October, but it appears Aaron Judge has gotten a jump start on his annual end of the year swoon.

Harsh? Yes, it sure is.

But true? Right now, the answer is also yes because Judge has been pretty mediocre for about two months, but especially in the last month since returning from his elbow injury.

I wrote those three sentences Thursday afternoon, and then of course a few hours later Judge homered in his first two at bats and led the Yankees to a blowout victory over the AL Central-leading Tigers, making amends for at least one of the blowout losses the Yankees suffered in the first two games of the series.

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So, Judge essentially flipped me the bird. OK, that’s fine. I didn’t pick the right day to point out his sluggish play of late.

Still, my point holds true. Thursday night aside, he had been mediocre for far too long and if the Yankees hope to have any chance of doing anything this season, Judge has to get back to being the wrecking ball that he was in the first three months when he looked like one of the greatest hitters the game has ever seen.

He’s probably still going to win the AL MVP award, but unless he has a drastic surge down the stretch, it will only be due to the fact that his numbers were so unbelievably off the charts great in the first half of the season.

That being said, I don’t give a shit about the MVP award. I don’t care if Judge wins, or Seattle’s Cal Raleigh wins, or someone else wins. It’s immaterial to me. The only thing that matters to me, and I’m sure to Judge as well, is whether the Yankees win the World Series.

And given how egregiously bad the bullpen has been, the Yankees’ only chance to win games now and in October is to score a ton of runs and they sure as hell aren’t going to do that in the postseason against good teams without Judge playing like an MVP. The Yankees can’t score 12 or 13 runs every night, which is what it would have taken to win either of the first two games of this demoralizing series against Detroit.

Of all the players I can be calling out right now - Anthony Volpe, Ryan McMahon, Austin Wells, Paul Goldschmidt, any relief pitcher not named David Bednar - Judge probably doesn’t deserve it. You look at his numbers across the entire season and they’re phenomenal as he has 46 homers, 100 RBI, and he leads MLB in average (.322), on-base (.444), slugging (.669) and OPS (1.112) and total bases (328). He also leads the AL in runs scored (118) and walks (104).

No doubt, he’s had a great season. But in a world where we live by the credo ‘What have you done for me lately?’ the truth is that Judge’s performance has noticeably dipped.

Going into Thursday, since Aug. 5, the day Judge returned from his 10-day stint on the injured list, he was hitting just .239 which ranked 113th among 170 qualified hitters in that span. His on-base was great at .411 which ranked ninth, but that’s because his 22% walk rate is No. 1, and that’s largely because opposing pitchers are perfectly content to walk him.

Among Judge’s 26 hits in the 32 games he had played since Aug. 5, he had just four doubles and seven homers with a mere 13 RBI. He was actually striking out only 19.9% of the time which is lower than his season total of 24.7%, but he was also making a bunch of non-productive outs, and Wednesday he grounded into two killer double plays that spiked potential rallies while the game was still close.

The Yankees don’t need Judge to be drawing walks, they need him swinging and doing big damage like he did Thursday, and that wasn’t happening at the rate the Yankees need. Let’s hope this is the start of a big finishing kick for the captain.

Sept. 9: Tigers 12, Yankees 2

➤ Well, we have a new leader in the clubhouse for worst inning of the 2025 season. Damn, it was one of the worst innings of the 21st century. The seventh inning was an absolute abomination, a complete embarrassment in every way for the Yankees with Fernando Cruz and Mark Leiter Jr. playing the starring roles.

➤ In the last 75 years, there have been only two MLB games where a team had two relievers in the same game allow at least four earned runs without getting a single out. The other was Aug. 31, 1999 when Mark Petkovsek and Troy Percival did this for the Angels in a 14-12 loss to the Indians. Now Cruz and Leiter have become the second duo to suck to that unimaginable level.

➤ The game was tied at 2-2, but the Tigers sent 14 men to the plate and scored nine runs on five hits, five walks, a hit batsmen and a wild pitch. Cruz and Leiter combined to face the first nine men and every one of them reached base and eventually scored. Tim Hill came in and allowed an inherited runner to score before recording all three outs. You don’t need me to recap the carnage.

➤ Will Warren made his 30th start and it was another good one, albeit all for naught. He gave up two runs on just two hits and a walk, the only mistake a two-run homer by Parker Meadows in the fifth. His good work was quickly rendered meaningless during the 56-pitch odyssey that had Yankee Stadium booing loudly.

➤ The Yankees did almost nothing on offense against Casey Mize and Chris Paddack. Mize allowed solo homers to Judge and Cody Bellinger, Judge’s the 359th of his career which moved him past Yogi Berra and into fifth on the Yankees’ all-time list. Paddack retired all nine men he faced in covering the final three innings as the Yankees finished with four hits, no walks and 12 strikeouts.

➤ In the last two games going back to the Toronto series, Volpe and McMahon (batting 8th and 9th) went 0-for-12 with 11 strikeouts. And in the fifth, the Yankees got their first two men on base but Volpe popped out trying to execute a useless bunt, and McMahon whiffed, killing the threat.

What they said in Tuesday’s clubhouse

• Aaron Boone on the bullpen implosion: “It got away from us. It’s not like we got hit a lot all over the yard; just some balls finding some holes, but too many free passes. We have the guys down there to get it done, we just got to sync it up. Tonight’s a tough night, but it doesn’t change a lot of the good things that have happened in some of these games we’ve been able to close out.”

• Cruz: “It’s just one of those nights that we need to forget. This is a sport that, as you see, it’s not as easy as it looks. Sometimes you’re on top of the horse. Sometimes you get out of it. So you learn how to go on top again. … You’re never bigger than the game and you always learn from failures.”

Sept. 10: Tigers 11, Yankees 1

➤ Wait, didn’t this game already happen? A close pitchers duel early, Yankees’ bullpen shits the bed and they lose by 10 runs. We just saw that, so this has to be a misprint, right? Sadly, no. Literally the same game happened on back-to-back nights and if you think, gee, that’s pretty strange, here’s how strange it was: This is the first time in franchise history the Yankees lost by 10 runs in consecutive home games. They’ve been a franchise since 1903.

➤ Carlos Rodon pitched well, but as is often the case with him, it was one inning that did him in. He was cruising through four innings, no runs and his pitch count was in great shape, and then after he retired the first man in the fifth, it was single, walk, hit batsmen in the span of 10 pitches to load the bases. He got a big strikeout, but then wouldn’t it figure, ex-Yankee Gleyber Torres delivered a two-run single on a 3-2 pitch. But Rodon limited the damage to that, and got through six innings and his final line showed only those two runs on five hits and a walk which was enough to keep the Yankees in it.

➤ And then the Yankees bullpen took over and before the nightmare was done, Leiter, Camilo Doval, Hill and Luke Weaver combined to give up nine runs on 10 hits and managed to get only seven outs. Position player Austin Slater finished the ninth and recorded two outs throwing 36 mph meatballs. He was the most effective reliever the Yankees had in the first two games in this series. Pathetic.

➤ How about Doval? The hard-throwing righty has become the Joey Gallo of trade deadline acquisitions. Since he arrived in New York, this bum has pitched in 16 games and has allowed an earned run in seven of them. In 13.2 innings he has a 6.59 ERA and 1.976 WHIP. Yes, he is averaging nearly two baserunners allowed per inning.

➤ But Doval is far from the only problem. Since the trade deadline and through this game, the Yankees bullpen had a 5.57 ERA. The only teams with a worse bullpen ERA in that span are the Marlins and Rockies. Zeroing in on September, the bullpen ERA is an MLB-worst 9.91. Zooming out for the full season, it’s 4.54 which ranks 24th, and none of the clubs with higher ERAs (Twins, A’s, Diamondbacks, Angels, Rockies, Nationals) are in playoff position. That is some special suckage.

What they said in Wednesday’s clubhouse

• Boone on the latest bullpen implosion: “Through this stretch of games where over the last month we started winning, we’ve closed out a lot of good games with guys capable of shutting people down. So this is what we have. I have a lot of confidence in their ability and their stuff, but we’ve got to bring it together and we haven’t done that consistently enough yet. Can we do it? That’s we’re going to find out and that’s what we’re going to need to do if we're going to make a big run at this.”

• Austin Wells: “We’ve played good teams. You can’t get away with as many mistakes against teams like that. I definitely think they’ve made some good swings on some good pitches, and also we’ve put ourselves in holes.”

Sept. 11: Yankees 9, Tigers 3

➤ Before the game, President Trump went into the clubhouse while visiting the city on the 24th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. He shook Judge’s hand, told him how great he was, and then informed the team that they never lose when he shows up. I doubt that’s true, but hey, they didn’t lose this one and maybe his little pep talk helped Judge. Yeah, I doubt that, too.

➤ Also before the game, the Yankees revealed that Volpe has been playing with a partial tear in his left shoulder since first hurting it way back on May 3. He took a cortisone shot Wednesday and that’s why he was out of the lineup the last two nights. Who knows what to believe here, but it’s his non-throwing shoulder so that should have nothing to do with how terrible he has thrown and fielded the ball all season. Maybe it affects his swing, but I’m guessing not much because if it did, he would have gone the IL long ago, especially with how terribly he has hit all season.

➤ All I know is the Yankees are a better team when Jose Caballaro is at short which he was in Volpe’s absence. Caballaro is probably Volpe’s equal in the field and you saw how smoothly and confident he played the position, and at the plate he went 2-for-3 with an RBI, a run scored and a stolen base. In other words, he was more productive in one game than Volpe has been in his last 10 or so.

➤ As I outlined above, Judge finally had a Judgian-type game. He went 3-for-4 with solo homers in the first and third innings, a hit by pitch and a run scored in the fourth, and a single in the sixth before striking out with the bases loaded in the seventh. It was just his second three-hit game since July 12, and just his second game with multiple RBIs since Aug. 17. The two homers gave him 361 for his career, tying him fourth place on the Yankees all-time list with Joe DiMaggio.

➤ In between Judge’s homers the Yankees scored twice in the second as Jazz Chisholm singled, stole second, scored on a Ben Rice double, and Rice scored on a Caballaro single. Four more runs came in the fourth as the Yankees had five hits and the Judge HBP and that made it 9-1 and not even the Yankees bullpen could blow that lead.

➤ Giancarlo Stanton also homered in the third. But he also struck out three times and is now in a brutal 4-for-40 stretch across his last 12 games. After mashing everything thrown his way, he has looked clueless lately, flailing at pitches and missing them the way he often does.

➤ Cam Schlittler had a nice bounce back after his lousy outing against the Jays last weekend. He went six innings and gave up just one run on five hits and two walks with seven strikeouts. Ryan Yarbrough then took the rest of the game and while he wasn’t great in those three innings, he at least allowed Boone to stay away from any of the gas cans out there.

➤ The Yankees are a very poor 17-24 against the other five AL teams who currently occupy playoff spots - Detroit, Toronto, Houston, Boston and Seattle. That includes 2-8 against the Red Sox with three games coming up this weekend.

What they said in Thursday’s clubhouse

• Judge on Trump’s attendance: “We put on a show. He came in here and told everybody we were gonna win. I guess we have to have him around more often. Especially today, 9-11, with all the strength and resilience that New York City showed during one of our darkest hours, darkest times. … It’s an important day for all of us to come together. It was kind of a surreal moment and surreal day.”

• Boone: “Leaving town going to play Boston now, that was a good win right there. Excited to get up to Boston. Obviously, they’ve had our number and they’ve had their way with us this year. We know it’s gonna be a tough series, and hopefully we can go out there and set a nice tone early.”

Now it’s on to Fenway Park, the most evil place in the universe, at least for the Yankees. The last time they rolled into Boston back in mid-June, they were a season-best 17 games over .500 and in first place in the AL East by 4.5 games. And then they scored four total runs and got swept three straight, and the demarcation line for the season was established.

Since that miserable weekend, the Yankees’ record is 39-40 and their chances of winning the AL East are pretty much gone after Toronto took two of three from the Astros which leave the Yankees three out with 16 games left. Now the Yankees will try to hold on to the top wildcard position - they begin the weekend up by a half-game - because that would mean, in all likelihood, they’d have to play the Red Sox in the wildcard best-of-three series, but the games would be in the Bronx.

Here are some of the top Red Sox to watch:

➤ SS Trevor Story: He’s having a big bounce back season after his first three years in Boston were ruined by injuries. He leads the team with 28 homers and 91 RBI.

➤ 3B Alex Bregman: A Yankee killer who in just four games against them this season is hitting .438 and for the season has an OPS of .836.

➤ LF Jarren Duran: Leads MLB with 12 triples, he leads the Red Sox with 39 doubles, and his 79 RBI trail only Story.

➤ 1B Romy Gonzalez: He has missed recent games with an injury but is expected back for the series and he’s been a problem all year for the Yankees with his .311 average.

➤ RP Aroldis Chapman: Unbelievable. He just allowed his first run since July 23, blowing the save Wednesday against the A’s and taking the loss. His ERA is 1.14 and his WHIP is 0.669.

The pitching matchups are scheduled to be:

• Friday, 7:10, Apple-TV: Luis Gil (3.31 ERA) vs. Lucas Giolito (3.38) whose ERA is the lowest of his career despite just 7.4 strikeouts per nine innings.

• Saturday, 4:10, YES: Max Fried (3.02) vs. Brayan Bello (3.12) who has dominated the Yankees in two starts this season, allowing zero runs on six hits and four walks across a pair of seven-inning victorious outings.

• Sunday, 7:10, ESPN: Will Warren (4.22) vs Garrett Crochet (2.57) who has also dominated the Yankees twice, allowing two runs in 15.2 innings, though in the first game he faced them, he gave up five runs yet still won.