Judge slam halts HR drought: ‘Was it 16 games?’

NEW YORK — Aaron Judge ended the longest home run drought of his major league career in the loudest way possible Friday night.

With the New York Yankees facing a three-run deficit against the Boston Red Sox in the seventh inning, Judge clubbed a go-ahead grand slam for his major-league-leading 52nd home run of the season. The swat unleashed thunderous delirium at Yankee Stadium. MVP chants prompted Judge, the American League MVP front-runner, to emerge from the dugout for a curtain call.

The blast was Judge’s eighth career grand slam and his first home run since slugging two against the Colorado Rockies on Aug. 25. He had gone 16 games, 60 at-bats and 75 plate appearances without one.

After the game, which New York held on to win 5-4, Judge claimed the length of the drought was news to him.

“Was it 16 games? I didn’t really know that,” Judge said. “It’s just another day. I really don’t focus on hitting homers. I don’t focus on any of that. I’ve got a job to do.

“Sixteen games, is that a lot or was it not? I don’t know.”

Judge was told it’s the most games he has gone without a home run as a major leaguer.

“It’s the most?” Judge asked. “It’ll probably be longer at some point in my career. So we’ll definitely break that.”

Yankees starter Clarke Schmidt wasn’t buying Judge’s ignorance.

“We try to keep our heads out of the weeds and just kind of pay attention to what we can control,” Schmidt said. “But Judge, he’s very aware of stuff like that, I think. So it’s hard to ignore. It feels like when he has two games in a row where he doesn’t get a homer, something’s going wrong.”

Most importantly for the Yankees, they held the lead after Judge’s homer for their third straight dramatic win. The result, coupled with an Orioles loss, moved New York three games ahead of Baltimore for first place in the American League East with 14 games remaining. The three-game division lead is the Yankees’ largest since June 7.

Scoreboard watching is heightened in October, but Judge said he believes the Yankees worrying about other teams’ results hurt them during their funk against inferior opponents at the end of August into September.

“I think we were paying attention to the standings a couple of weeks ago, and I think that’s when we just kept going back and forth, kind of passing the lead,” Judge said. “We all talked in this room and said, ‘Hey, if we just focus on us and what we got to do, we’ll be where we want to be.’ So hopefully nobody’s looking at the standings. I’m certainly not.”

The Orioles had already lost to the Detroit Tigers when Anthony Volpe stepped into the batter’s box to lead off the bottom of the seventh inning with New York down 4-0. The Red Sox were in control. Then they unraveled.

Red Sox right-hander Zack Kelly began the inning with a full-count walk to Volpe. Alex Verdugo then fell behind 0-2 before clawing back to work another walk. Gleyber Torres followed with a single to score Volpe from second base for the Yankees’ first run of the night.

Boston manager Alex Cora replaced Clark with left-hander Cam Booser to face Juan Soto with Judge looming. Booser added kerosene to the fire, walking Soto on four pitches way out of the strike zone to load the bases. With each ball, the decibel level in the building reached a new height. By the fourth one, Yankee Stadium was in a frenzy. Soto flipped his bat. Judge strolled to the plate. Booser was in trouble.

He exacerbated the situation by falling behind Judge with a cutter in the dirt. The next pitch was a fastball that appeared to be in the strike zone but was called a ball. Forced to attack the strike zone, Booser grooved a 96 mph fastball down the middle. Judge pounced and didn’t miss it.

“Everything clicked,” Schmidt said. “It was a perfect moment.”

“Jazz came up to me after Judge hit the homer, and just to see our dugout erupt, to see Yankee Stadium erupt, he was like, ‘This is pretty sick.’ That was one of those really cool regular-season moments you get at Yankee Stadium.”

Yankees manager Aaron Boone

Judge’s breakthrough extended the Yankees’ streak of tense victories in playoff-like atmospheres to three.

On Wednesday, Soto cracked a go-ahead two-run homer with his right foot still throbbing moments after fouling a pitch off it and giving the Yankees a scare. New York went on to beat the Kansas City Royals 4-3 in 11 innings on Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s first career walk-off hit. On Thursday, Soto delivered his first walk-off hit in pinstripes in a 2-1, 10-inning win over the Red Sox to begin the four-game series against the Yankees’ rival.

On Friday, it was Judge’s turn to delight the home crowd with more theater.

“Jazz came up to me after Judge hit the homer, and just to see our dugout erupt, to see Yankee Stadium erupt, he was like, ‘This is pretty sick,'” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “That was one of those really cool regular-season moments you get at Yankee Stadium.”