BALTIMORE — It was during the early afternoon hours on Saturday that Aaron Judge and Juan Soto test drove a handshake, running through the motions of their home-run celebration within the clubhouse walls. The Yankees’ captain nodded toward his teammate and remarked: “We’re going to do this a couple of times today.”
The superstars followed through on that promise, with Judge authoring more long ball history to help the Yankees to their first series victory in a month. Behind Judge’s Major League-leading 34th homer, New York moved into a virtual tie with the Orioles atop the American League East with a 6-1 victory at Camden Yards.
“Just having a little bit of fun,” Judge said. “When he’s locked in like that and seeing so many good pitches, it’s fun to hit behind him and see what he does. It’s just impressive at-bat after at-bat.”
The Yankees hadn’t won a series since June 10-13 at Kansas City, faring 0-7-1 over that span. Saturday marked the club’s first time winning consecutive games since that Royals series.
Soto and Judge put the Bombers up big, clearing the center-field wall with back-to-back fifth-inning homers off right-hander Grayson Rodriguez. Soto lined a changeup a Statcast-projected 426 feet, and Judge unloaded on a trademark 431-foot blast “to the moon that just keeps on going,” as manager Aaron Boone described it.
“It’s always great to see that,” Soto said. “We just literally were talking about it this morning. … We were talking about our handshake. We were trying to do it a couple of times today.”
Judge circled the bases as the first Yankee to hit 34 home runs before an All-Star break. Roger Maris (33 in 1961) and Judge (33 in 2022) previously shared the club mark for home runs before the break.
“Hopefully, those 34 homers came in a lot of wins,” Judge said. “That’s what it’s all about. I don’t really try to focus on personal stats. It’s just about trying to get wins.”
Judge is on pace for 57 homers. Boone said that 34 homers at the break would have been “nice, but very believable,” and catcher Austin Wells — who hit a three-run homer in the first inning Saturday — claimed to have predicted Judge would reach the break with exactly 34 homers and 85 RBIs.
“That was my guess for what he would have, the last time we were here [in late April],” Wells said. “That is unbelievable, really. Getting to be in the dugout and watching him do that, I can’t put it into words. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
