Swing-n-Miss Judge Earns Dubious Honor
He's a 6-7, near 300-pound slugger who can hit the ball a very, very long way. But like most big bats in The Bigs, Aaron Judge is prone the strikeout.
In Monday's makeup double-header (from mid-April) in Detroit, Judge set an MLB record for most K's in a double-dip: 8 combined in the two contests. The Yankees won the afternoon tilt, 7-4, as Luis Severino collected ten strikeouts of his ow to improve to 9-1. Detroit took the nightcap 4-2, helped in part by a silent gavel from Judge.
Judge struck out eight times in nine at-bats, the most in a doubleheader since strikeouts for hitters were first recorded in 1910 in the NL and 1913 in the AL, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Judge struck out in each of his five at-bats in the late game, including with a runner aboard in the bottom of the ninth.
The California-born 26-year-old Yankees outfield took home AL Rookie of the Year honors in 2017, bashing an remarkable 52 homers with 114 RBI to go along with a .284 batting average. He did strikeout over 200 times last year, and is well on pace to surpass that total in 2018.
With just a bit more than one-third of the season having been played, Judge has whiffed 83 times. The only player in the entire league with more strikeouts is Texas' Joey Gallo (85).