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The painful stretch delivered five straight losses after the deadline, including Castillo’s return to the Bronx in his Seattle debut, when Cole heard boos after allowing six first-inning runs—including three homers. Then they endured a miserable three-game sweep in St. Louis, where players sweltered under triple-digit conditions and had their bats shut down by Montgomery’s winning effort on a Saturday afternoon. Seeing Montgomery in Cardinals red was “a little funky,” as Judge put it, but the lefty felt right at home in his new duds.
“I was always worried about getting booed off the mound in New York,” Montgomery said. “I mean, the pinstripes are heavy. Not everyone can handle it. I feel like I handled it OK. I could have been better, but there were a lot of things going into that. Here [in St. Louis], I’m just being myself and pitching the way I want to. The Yankees were good to me for seven years, so I’m not going to say anything bad about them. I always thought I was going to be a Yankee lifer.”
Before the Yankees departed St. Louis, Judge continued a conversation that he’d started at the All-Star Game with Paul Goldschmidt, the Cardinals’ standout first baseman and the eventual National League MVP. They exchanged cell phone numbers and texted frequently, looking to glean information that could boost their respective games. Judge’s interest was in improving his contact rate with two-strike counts, seeking to mimic Goldschmidt’s no-stride approach. Judge toyed with it occasionally throughout 2022, and again the following spring.
HOMER #44: August 8 vs. Seattle Mariners’ Ryan Borucki (9th inning, solo)
Exit velocity: 107.7 mph. Distance: 423 feet. Launch angle: 23 degrees. HR in 27 of 30 MLB parks.
Team meetings always make for interesting story lines, at least offering an optic that a manager and players are grinding behind closed doors to correct a skid. Some would argue that they are little more than eyewash, but that’s a debate for another time. Back in 1998, the Yankees were in Seattle when manager Joe Torre called a meeting five games in, telling his star-studded roster that he had been disgusted by their play. Then David Cone spoke, and Paul O’Neill did, too. They won fourteen of the next fifteen games, claimed first place by the end of April, and never let go.
“To me, winning is a by-product of doing everything right,” Torre said, years later. “We just weren’t playing well. I’ve always preached, ‘Don’t lose this game. Make somebody beat you.’ We were losing games because we weren’t playing up to our ability. I was upset with it. I was very upset in that meeting.”
Pacing the carpet in the visiting clubhouse at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, the retractable-roof building that spent two decades known as Safeco Field, Boone wasn’t as chapped as Torre had been in ’98 at the old Kingdome. But as Boone spoke to his players that afternoon, he stressed that the dust of the trade deadline had settled. August needed to be go time, and as he looked around the room, he saw the faces of the men who would determine how far this roster could go.
“This is our group now,” Boone told his team. “We have everything we need in this room. We’ve got everything in the room to get through this and realize our goal of being a champion.”
Taillon, who started that night, called the pregame meeting “a nice little get-together” and said the team “went out there with a ton of energy.” Judge had nodded. He’d noticed that the Yankees had not won since his last home run, and sensed that his teammates were looking for someone to lead.
* * *
Judge banged a ground-rule double in his first at-bat of the night, but Andrew Benintendi and Josh Donaldson did most of the heavy lifting, combining for six RBIs. Judge put the cherry on top in the ninth, parking a Ryan Borucki slider over the center-field wall to seal a 9–4 rout.
Not everything sparkled in the Emerald City, though. That evening marked the expiration of Matt Carpenter’s magical run in a Yankees uniform, seeing him painfully limp off the field after fouling a ball off his left foot. X-rays revealed a fracture, and he was promptly fitted for a walking boot. Carpenter had batted .307 with 15 homers and 37 RBIs in just 127 at-bats, but he’d have no more in the regular season and would struggle greatly against postseason pitching, removing an unexpectedly valuable contributor from the lineup.
As the series continued, Seattle bested the Yanks in a grueling thirteen-inning contest, a 1–0 decision that featured Cole and Castillo going toe-to-toe deep into the night. The aces were overpowering, and Mariners manager Scott Servais called it “one of the best major league games I’ve ever watched.” Cole and the Yankees just considered it another loss, especially when baserunning miscues hurt their chances. The Mariners were legitimate, Boone thought, and they’d be an unappealing matchup in the postseason.
“They’re really good,” Boone said. “They can pitch, obviously have some good starters, but their bullpen is about as good a bullpen as we’ve faced.”
HOMER #45: August 10 vs. Seattle Mariners’ Penn Murfee (7th inning, solo)
Exit velocity: 105.2 mph. Distance: 412 feet. Launch angle: 32 degrees. HR in 30 of 30 MLB parks.
As the Yankees concluded their visit to Seattle, Judge’s remarkable campaign conjured one of the great mysteries of his career, which took place on that same field during Judge’s rookie season. On July 21, 2017, Judge had crushed one of the longest homers ever hit at what was then called Safeco Field, just a row or two from completely leaving the stadium. In an era when technology could pin numbers to every swing, miss or hit, that particular drive toward left field off Andrew Moore remains a glitch, a homer that went unrecorded by MLB’s Statcast system.
As such, it seemed to gain some of the mythology that Mickey Mantle created in 1953, when a mammoth drive at Washington’s Griffith Stadium coined the phrase “tape-measure home run.” Reports of the time indicate that Mantle’s shot off Chuck Stobbs soared over the 391-foot marker on the fence, cleared thirty-two rows of bleachers in left-center field, and struck an advertising sign 460 feet from home plate before continuing to roll. Arthur “Red” Patterson, the Yankees’ press secretary, trekked from the press box and found ten-year-old Donald Dunaway, who showed Patterson where he’d discovered the ball resting in the backyard of 434 Oakdale Street. Based on Dunaway’s account, Patterson made the unscientific calculation that Mantle’s drive had traveled 565 feet. For his part in the tale, Dunaway is said to have received a crisp dollar bill. (Alternate retellings have the payment at seventy-five cents, five dollars, ten dollars, or nothing at all.)
Judge’s drive was Mantle-esque in that way, eluding the radar and cameras that are used to calculate home run distances. CC Sabathia gawked in the visiting dugout, gesturing animatedly toward the top of the stadium to show Judge where the ball had landed. Alan Cockrell, the hitting coach at the time, had been with the Mariners for three years from 2008 through 2010. Even Cockrell raved that he’d never seen a ball hit farther in Seattle. “It’s not fair,” said David Robertson, a Yankees reliever at the time. “It’s like he’s playing in a little kid’s park.”
We will never know exactly how far Judge’s drive traveled that day in 2017, but at least the systems had eyes on him as he tacked on another Seattle souvenir. Facing Penn Murfee, a twenty-eight-year-old rookie, Judge sent a slider into the left-field seats. The drive built a 3–1 lead, but Seattle rallied, with veteran Carlos Santana hitting a go-ahead blast off Albert Abreu (the main piece of the trade for catcher Jose Trevino having been reacquired after a brief stint with the Texas Rangers). Judge was hitting .304 with 45 homers and 99 RBIs, but as he stretched across a row of seats on a chartered jet, his team had lost eight of ten games. It was a quiet flight across the country.
“Superstars have the ability to carry a team by themselves,” said Kyle Higashioka. “We don’t want to put them in that situation; we want to take all the pressure off them that we can and just have everybody always firing on all cylinders. But that’s just the nature of a true superstar, picking us up when eight of the nine of us are going bad. Big G did that for us in 2018 for like two months after Judge broke his wrist, and we were really banged up. [Stanton] is an MVP caliber player. So is Judge. It’s just what the superstars do.”
HOMER #46: August 12 vs. Boston Red Sox’s Nathan Eovaldi (3rd inning, solo)
Exit velocity: 113.8 mph. Distance: 429 feet. Launch angle: 31 degrees. HR in 30 of 30 MLB parks.
The Yanks enjoyed an off day before getting back on the field at Boston’s Fenway Park, where they had an early one-run lead against Nathan Eovaldi. A hard-throwing right-hander, Eovaldi happened to come from Alvin, Texas, home of the ultimate hard-throwing righty. As a Yankee in 2015, Eovaldi had beamed on the field in Houston as he pressed palms with Nolan Ryan, a pitcher unlike any other. Over twenty-seven years with the New York Mets, California Angels, Houston Astros, and Texas Rangers, Ryan racked up more strikeouts (5,714) and walks (2,795) than anyone in history.
“Growing up for me, I connected to baseball with him,” Eovaldi said. “In our town, it was Nolan Ryan everything. You’d go to any restaurant and his memorabilia and everything was there.”
Durability had been Ryan’s hallmark; Eovaldi was not so blessed. His Yankees tenure ended with the second Tommy John surgery of his career, and he’d only twice made thirty or more starts over his eleven seasons. Rizzo singled home Judge to build a first-inning lead, and Judge notched his 100th RBI a frame later, blasting a drive that cleared the Green Monster and came to rest atop a parking garage on Lansdowne Street.
“We were trying to go up and in right there—it’s just, he’s on fire right now,” Eovaldi said. “He’s locked in at the plate. I felt like I located that pitch.”
Eovaldi, who’d been in Yankees pinstripes for Judge’s big league debut in 2016, said that he was rooting for Judge to break Maris’s record—though he’d wished not to have become a footnote in the chase.
“When you have a guy who goes out there and bets on himself, you want those guys to do well,” Eovaldi said. “Obviously not against us, but he’s doing it well and it’s impressive to watch. One of the best things about him is, he’s not selfish in any way. He’s going to do what it takes for the team and that’s why he’s one of the leaders over there.”
There was a gut punch to come. Clay Holmes had lost his dominant touch, blowing his fourth save as the Yanks fell, 3–2, in ten innings. Boone acknowledged that he was considering removing Holmes from the closer’s role. Though his Yanks hardly resembled the first-half juggernaut that steamrolled its opposition nightly, Judge was doing everything he could to strap the club across his broad shoulders.
“He gets a lot of credit for the home runs, obviously,” said DJ LeMahieu, “but he’s a complete baseball player. He can hit for average; he’s a complete hitter that hits home runs. And his defense isn’t always appreciated, because he hits home runs. He’s a complete player who takes pride in all of the aspects of his game.”
* * *
Judge had 46 home runs as the Yanks took the field in Boston the next night, which meant Judge and Isiah Kiner-Falefa had combined for… 46.
Though the team had forecast that swing changes and friendlier dimensions in the Bronx might unlock double-digit home run power, Kiner-Falefa was still looking for his first long ball in a Yankees uniform. A distant relative of Hall of Fame slugger Ralph Kiner, Kiner-Falefa had called the Yankees “my dream team,” having fantasized about playing Derek Jeter’s position when he posed for a boyhood photograph in the right-field bleachers at the old Yankee Stadium while on a family trip from his native Hawaii.
But his year on the field had been more trying than anyone could have imagined. The low point came when a fan attacked Kiner-Falefa’s father, Fili, in a haunting Twitter message, claiming that the shortstop had been “shot dead in the Bronx.” Though the comment turned out to be from a kid being stupid, Kiner-Falefa was understandably upset.
“If they don’t like me, they don’t like me,” said Kiner-Falefa, whose intense demeanor was well received in the clubhouse. “The only thing I can do is play better. It’s kind of my fault.”
Privately, Kiner-Falefa’s teammates were furious and protective on his behalf. They had hated seeing how players like Joey Gallo and Aaron Hicks were treated by the home fans, believing that there was too much swirling negativity amid a special season, and family members being subjected to what could be perceived as death threats was completely unacceptable.
“When that type of stuff happens, it sucks. It’s on us in the clubhouse to make sure you’re loved and protected,” said Anthony Rizzo. “When you hear outside noise, it’s hard to ignore it. But as professionals, you ignore it and you do the best you can. The atmosphere you create in the clubhouse is the most important thing.”
Kiner-Falefa’s first Yankees homer finally came in the fifth inning of a 3–2 win, caught by a young fan sitting atop the Green Monster. “This,” Kiner-Falefa said, “is everything I’ve ever wanted in my life. To get the opportunity to come through tonight feels good.”
When a club security official scaled the Monster seats hoping to broker a swap for Kiner-Falefa’s milestone baseball, the kid asked for an autograph—not Kiner-Falefa’s, but Judge’s. Fair enough; the deal was struck, and Kiner-Falefa understood.
“Who wouldn’t want a Judge ball?” Kiner-Falefa said.
* * *
Another three-game skid began with Judge handcuffed in an 0-for-4, three-strikeout performance at Fenway, snapping his string of fourteen straight games reaching base. Then there were two subsequent defeats to the Rays; though Judge said that it was better to hit a skid in August than in the first week of the playoffs, it sure would have been preferable not to have one at all.
The Yankees dressed in their pinstripes early on the afternoon of August 17, organizing to take the annual team photo in center field ahead of that day’s game against the Rays. Judge had also agreed to participate in a different photo shoot that day, and the photographer asked him to bring a bat and batting gloves out to the field.
With the entire team assembled in three rows, Judge stood on a riser at the back and center, with the roster facing toward the 408-foot marker in center field. He playfully held the bat over his right shoulder for a few takes, then dropped it out of sight. Only later did team photographer Ariele Goldman Hecht discover what Judge had done. She loved it. When editors evaluated their options, they decided that the official team photograph should have Judge holding a bat. In 120 years of Yankees photographs, there had never been one like it.
“Had another player tried to pull a similar stunt, the photo might never have seen the light of day,” said Nathan Maciborski, an executive editor at Yankees Magazine. “But Judge was having fun, as he is wont to do, and during such a magical season, we felt him holding his bat for the team photo was rather appropriate.”
On the night Judge surreptiously inserted his bat into the team photo, Josh Donaldson hit a memorable walk-off grand slam that stamped a victory over Tampa Bay, but another three losses followed—all at the hands of the Blue Jays. Boone had reached his boiling point, seething as he found a seat at the front of Yankee Stadium’s press conference room, obligated to unpack another loss—their fifteenth in nineteen games. They were getting booed at home, and the manager’s patience had worn thin.
“We’ve got to play better, period. And the great thing is,” Boone said, pausing mid-sentence for effect. He raised his right hand and slammed the table in front of him, jarring a microphone and a plastic bottle of Poland Spring water. For those in the audience, it almost felt as though one of your elementary school teachers had finally been pushed too far.
“It’s right in front of us! It’s right here!” he continued, now circling his right index finger and thumb into an OK sign, gesturing animatedly.
“And we can fix it. It’s right here. It’s there and we can run away with this thing. And we’ve got the dudes in there to do it. We’ve got to do it. If we don’t score, tough to win. And I’ll answer these same questions—am I perplexed? Yeah. I am.”
Said Cashman: “I’ve got to give managers credit. They have the pre- and postgame [interviews] every day. It’s rinse and repeat sometimes. Whether you’re a player or a manager, it’s not easy while you’re going through adversity to address and fill in the blanks when questions are coming in. Sometimes the answers don’t appear as easily as you’d like.”
The fans were just as frustrated, voicing their displeasure by jeering Cashman during a pregame ceremony to retire Paul O’Neill’s uniform No. 21, during which the YES Network analyst received a Gatorade watercooler impaled by a bat; O’Neill kicked it. Appropriately for the hot-tempered O’Neill, there were fireworks with the Jays; Toronto ace Alek Manoah hit Judge in the left elbow with a fastball.
Judge ambled up the first-base line slowly, registering his displeasure. Judge’s teammates trickled out of the home dugout, stragglers awaiting their cue, but Judge waved them off. Later, in the dugout, he told teammates that the “game was too close” to risk ejections. Benintendi would club a two-run homer, his first long ball in a Yankees uniform, to avert a sweep.
“We’ve got to have that mentality of, ‘Hey, every time we step up to the plate, I’m going to be the guy that goes out there and gets it done,’ ” Judge said. “It’s about us picking ourselves up and not forgetting we’re the New York Yankees. We’ve got to go out and show people that.”
HOMER #47: August 22 vs. New York Mets’ Max Scherzer (3rd inning, solo)
Exit velocity: 109.6 mph. Distance: 383 feet. Launch angle: 26 degrees. HR in 30 of 30 MLB parks.
Max Scherzer was gunning for his two hundredth career victory as he walked to the mound at Yankee Stadium on a pleasant Monday evening, the three-time Cy Young Award winner enjoying a dominant first season with the Mets. Given the Yankees’ recent struggles, the pitching matchup looked like a mismatch. Judge ensured that it wouldn’t be, providing a big blow after DJ LeMahieu nicked Scherzer for a first-inning sacrifice fly. In this fifteenth spin through the circuit, the thirty-eight-year-old Scherzer still brought it as one of the game’s best, and he relished the challenge of taking on Judge.
