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Aaron Judge hasn't been at his best for the New York Yankees during the 2024 playoffs to this point. In a similar vein to 2022, Judge has struggled to make much of an impact from the plate, hitting well below the Mendoza line with his only saving grace being his incredible ability to get on base. But during the Yankees' 6-3 Game 2 win in the ALCS against the Cleveland Guardians, Judge came up huge, finally hitting his first home run of this year's postseason.
For a superstar like Judge, the pressure to deliver in the grand stage of the playoffs is immense. With great power comes great responsibility, as a famous comic book uncle once said, and Judge bears the responsibility to lift the Yankees' offense on a nightly basis. And it seems like the baseball gods — or whatever cosmic forces are out there — are smiling kindly upon Judge as he stays the course, with his long ball against the Guardians poetically leaving the yard along Monument Park at Yankee Stadium's center field.
“You never know on these windy, chilly nights what that ball is going to do when you hit the center here, but the ghosts were pulling out there to Monument Park, that's for sure,” Judge said, per Jeff Passan of ESPN.
If Judge manages to keep up this level of production in his next few years for the Yankees, and perhaps even lead them to a World Series triumph, then it might be inevitable for him to see his name being among those honored at Monument Park.
He has only been an everyday player for the Yankees since 2017, but it seems like his tenure with the team has been far longer than that given how productive he has been throughout his career. He continues to climb the all-time Yankees postseason home run ladder, and now that he's finally broken his long-ball duck in this year's playoffs, he could keep on racking up the dingers as they look to proceed deeper and deeper into the postseason.
Aaron Judge wakes up from his slumber in Yankees' Game 2 win
Aaron Judge had a playoff OPS of .564 entering the Yankees' Game 2 ALCS clash against the Guardians on Tuesday night. The law of averages means that it's only a matter of time before Judge experiences positive regression, and it came in the form of an impressive home run to center field off of Hunter Gaddis — one of the Guardians' best relievers.
Judge has experienced a bit of a drop-off in his production during the playoffs over the years, and it seemed as though his past demons were back to haunt him. Even Yankees fans felt a bit of unease amid his struggles, with some even booing him for coming up short in some run-scoring situations. But Judge embraces the pressure of being the man for the Yankees with open arms.
“I've been booed here plenty of times. There's been a lot of legends that played here that have been booed. It's just part of it. You can't focus on that. You've got to go out there. They want to see you win. They want to see you do well. You've just got to focus on what you can control. What I can control is what I do in the box and what I do on the field,” Judge said.
