With Juan Soto on a tear, Chicago White Sox interim manager Grady Sizemore decided to intentionally walk Soto on Wednesday night, bringing Aaron Judge to the plate with two runners on in a 6-2 game.
Judge promptly homered, breaking the game open and making some MLB history in the process.
After waiting out the first three pitches from Chad Kuhl, all of which were out of the zone, Judge jumped on a sinker up and in, depositing it in the Chicago bullpen in left field. The blast was Judge’s 300th of his career, making him the fastest player in MLB history to reach that mark:
Judge accomplished the feat in his 955th game and 3,431st at-bat, breaking the previous marks set by Ralph Kiner and Babe Ruth. Kiner blasted his 300th home run in his 1,087th game, while Ruth reached the milestone in his 3,831st at-bat.
Judge admitted after the game that the free pass to Soto — who hit three home runs on Wednesday night and had homered earlier in the game Thursday — provided some motivation. “I was mad about the intentional walk, so that kind of fueled,” Judge said after the game. “Usually 3-0, I’ll take a pitch, see a pitch, kind of pass it on to the next guy. But in that situation, if they don’t want to pitch to you, you got to come through.”
Judge also acknowledged the great company his blast put him in, by surpassing Kiner and Ruth, a pair of baseball legends. “Those are some guys that have done a lot of great things in this game,” Judge said. “You throw around a lot of those names to people who don’t know baseball and they know who they are. It’s a special group to be in.”
The Yankees slugger leads the majors with 43 home runs, along with a league-leading 110 runs batted in.
New York’s 10-2 win kept them a half-game ahead of the Baltimore Orioles in the AL East.
