It Is Now Or Never For Aaron Judge To Save His Legacy
The Yankees are on the verge of an embarrassing World Series sweep and another failed year. But, for their flailing face of the franchise, much more is on the line heading into Game 4...
Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
Boy, can Aaron Judge ever relate to that little idiom right now.
With the entire season now on the line for the Yankees heading into a do-or-die Game 4 of the World Series, Judge has the weight of the entire world on his shoulders. If there is an athlete with more pressure on them right now, I’d like to meet him or her.
The Yankees find themselves in a 0-3 hole and one loss away from an embarrassing sweep to the Dodgers for a plethora of reasons. Chief among them, however, is the fact that they have gotten zero production from their superstar slugger. Their iconic, inspirational leader. Judge may have been the most feared hitter in the game during the regular season, but he’s been anything but when it has really mattered the most.
As such, Judge will enter an absolute must-win Game 4 on Tuesday with the most pressure heaved on his freakishly large shoulders. For should LA get the job done - and it is almost impossible now to predict a situation where they don’t - Judge will absorb the lion’s share of the blame for yet another year without a championship for the Yankees, a storied franchise that expects nothing less than a World Series year in and year out.
Granted, there will be others at fault once the now seemingly inevitable failure is confirmed. The pitching hasn’t been good. The Yanks have been out-executed by LA in almost every single area. And, outside of Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton, nobody is hitting. But, more importantly, Judge has gone ice cold at the plate, and his offensive struggles will be what will be remembered the most in the aftermath of defeat. When trawling through the wreckage of yet another playoff failure for an organization that prides itself on being the gold standard of winning, Judge’s inability to deliver on the biggest stage will be the opening line in the team’s 2024 season obituary.
For as historically great as the behemoth destroyer is over a 162 game schedule, none of that will matter if Judge craps the bed in Game 4. If the best power hitter in baseball can’t show any sign of life with everything on the line and at least force a Game 5, then all of the regular season success will be forgotten. All of the historical accomplishments, the breaking of records and the individual accolades will be looked at with disgust and tossed into the garbage.
After all, winning a championship is all Yankees fans care about. It is the only currency they know. Nothing else matters.
Which is why, with a history of failing to turn up in October, Judge is running out of time to not only save his team’s season, but his entire legacy too.
The stakes really are that high for the six-time All-Star, and soon-to-be two-time American League MVP, heading into Game 4.
Another lost performance at the plate will only enforce the narrative that Judge isn’t built for the postseason. That he hasn’t got what it takes to become an October hero like other Yankees icons of the past. Babe Ruth, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter all built their Hall of Fame legacies on an indisputable foundation of October excellence.
Judge, for all of his slugging prowess and regular season heroics, has yet to make his mark in the postseason. Despite regular trips to the playoffs, Judge has yet to take over a series or really deliver a true signature moment.
Mr. October he is not.
We aren’t just talking about a small sample size here, either. Judge has historically struggled this time of year. Yes, he has hit 15 postseason home runs. But, dating back to 2017, Judge owns a .196 batting average in 252 plate appearances. His career .733 OPS in the postseason doesn’t paint a prettier picture. Furthermore, Judge and Reggie Sanders remain the only hitters in AL/NL history to hit under .200 in more than 200 postseason at-bats.
That isn’t the level of production you expect from your face of the franchise during the most important time of year. Especially when you are the heart and soul of the Yankees, proud owners of 27 World Series rings.
However, as ineffective as Playoff Aaron Judge has been throughout his career, this October just feels different. Alarmingly so. The Captain of the most storied franchises in all of sports, the face of baseball, who signed a nine-year, $360 million contract just two years ago, has looked absolutely lost at the plate throughout these playoffs. It’s almost as if aliens have swooped down from whatever planet they inhabit, kidnapped the real Aaron Judge in order to clone him to form their own kind of baseball superteam, and left us with an imposter who has never seen a baseball bat in his life. Let alone swing one. Because, no matter how hard you try to convince me, I struggle to believe that the same majestic hitter who mashed 58 home runs and drove in 144 RBIs during the regular season is the same one we’re witnessing whiff at almost everything at the plate right now. It is almost impossible to comprehend.
But here we are.
Judge is 1-for-12 with no home runs, no RBIs, one walk and seven strikeouts with a .083 batting average in three World Series games. Following an 0-for-3 outing in Game 3 on Monday, Judge is now 6-for-43 (.140) this postseason with 20 strikeouts, two double-play grounders and just two home runs in 54 plate appearances. He’s also without a multihit performance in 12 games this October. And, despite boasting the highest walk percentage in MLB during the regular season (18.9%), he’s walked just once in the World Series. That lone walk came in Game 3 on a night where there were a couple of encouraging signs from the MVP, but nothing to get anything remotely excited about.
So, what has gone so drastically wrong this October? Why has the best hitter in the game all of a sudden lost his mojo under the brightest lights? It isn’t exactly hard to get to the root of Judge’s titanic struggles. If you go back and watch the tape, Judge is chasing way too many pitches outside the zone. The Dodgers, being the incredibly well-run, intelligent and competent organization we know them to be, have taken full advantage of this. They’ve done their homework and, in response, have fed Judge a meaty diet of offspeed and breaking pitches. The result? Judge has a whopping 60.7% whiff rate against those types of pitches in the postseason, compared to a 41.4% whiff rate in the regular season. It is clear that Judge is pressing too much and has lost all control of the strike zone. His chase rate that was a stellar 17.7 percent (also a career-low) during the regular season has ballooned to an ugly 28.7% in October, and an even uglier 35.3% in the World Series. Granted, throw the three-time Silver Slugger winner a fastball and prepare for the worst. Judge is hitting .364 with a 1.429 OPS against pitches thrown 95 mph or faster in the playoffs. But, on the flipside, he’s seeing 6% fewer fastballs this month than he did during the entire regular season. So, Judge is chasing too much, he’s not seeing as many fastballs as he would like and, because of his desperation to break out of his all-time slump, he’s lost the ability and the discipline to draw walks at the same rate he did during the regular season.
In other words, the Dodgers have exposed one of Judge’s rare weaknesses and they are twisting the knife in every opportunity they get. Breaking pitches have been Judge’s kryptonite, and LA’s pitching staff will continue to try and make Judge force and press the issue by not giving him anything in the zone.
Although, on the flipside, Judge could probably get thrown a huge juicy meatball drenched in marinara sauce right down the middle and he would still swing and miss given how significant his struggles are right now.
Of course, the Yankees will keep faith with their leader and MVP, even if the Bronx is starting to lose patience. You could hear boos break out around at Yankee Stadium at points on Monday night. Those boos will only get louder and more frequent if Judge and the Yankees get off to another sluggish start in GAME 4.
However, conventional wisdom would dictate that a player of Judge’s stature and superhuman, almost mythical ability, will eventually get the train back on the tracks. You would assume that normal service will eventually resume and Judge will figure out a way to stop chasing and forcing things. Given that he set the AL record with 62 homers in 2022, before hitting 58 during the regular season this year, you would think that it is only a matter of time before Judge gets hold of a pitch and absolutely demolishes it long into the Bronx sky.
One pitch is all Judge needs to truly break out of this maddening, mind-warping slump.
Time is running out though. The margin for error is less than razor thin. If the all-conquering Aaron Judge we all love to watch dominate in the regular season doesn’t show for Game 4, then the Yankees will have very little chance of forcing a Game 5 and reaching Halloween Eve still alive. After all, the offense has scored just seven runs in three World Series defeats. If the Yanks are to have any chance of defying the odds and achieving the impossible by becoming the first team in World Series history to come all the way back from 0-3 and win - only three teams in MLB history have reached a Game 5 when down 0-3, for further context - they will need Judge to get going right from the get-go in Game 4. If not, then Judge’s inability to get it done and be the guy for the Yankees when they needed him the most on the biggest stage will stay with him and act as a stain on his career moving forward.
You can argue that isn’t fair given that Judge is probably going to waltz into the Hall of Fame on roller skates once he retires. You can also point to the fact that Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ leading star and MVP, has endured his own struggles and has an ugly .091 batting average in three World Series games. Luckily for Ohtani, though, his supporting cast has stepped up, namely Freddie Freeman who has all but wrapped up the World Series MVP after homering in three consecutive World Series games this postseason. Judge hasn’t had that same luxury given the godly struggles of every Yankees hitter not named Soto or Stanton.
But Judge is different because Aaron Judge is the Captain of the New York Yankees. And, in the Bronx, winning is all that truly matters. Nothing else. Forget all the regular season success. Forget all the records. Forget all the times we have watched on in absolute awe as Judge does something else that truly perplexes the mind. No, when you wear the Pinstripes, you know that anything less than winning it all is seen as a total failure. That’s just the price of business when you play for the powerhouse Yankees.
Judge needs to get out of his own head and deliver a performance for the ages in Game 4 tonight. If he doesn’t, not only will the Yankees have failed once again in meeting their mission statement of winning a championship every single year, but Judge’s failure to get it done on the biggest stage this October will tarnish his legacy forever.