NEW YORK — Aaron Judge’s power outage set a personal record.
Judge’s homerless streak stretched to a career-high 16 games as the New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox 2-1 in 10 innings on Thursday night.
Judge, who leads the major leagues with 51 homers and 126 RBIs, went 1 for 4 with a single and is batting .207 (12 for 58) with 21 strikeouts since Aug. 26, a day after he went deep twice against Colorado. He went homerless in 15 games from Aug. 17 through Sept. 2 in 2017.
“Homers, even for guys like him, they still come in bunches and you’re going to have those stretches,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I guess it’s amazing that he has avoided those. But, I mean, that’s just a testament to how good of a hitter and how much power he has, but I thought he had good at-bats tonight and almost got one.”
Judge hit a first-inning drive that Wilyer Abreu caught in front of the right-field wall and a 104.7 mph grounder that third baseman Rafael Devers grabbed with a spinning stop and turned into an inning-ending double play in the fifth.
Judge hit nine homers in 10 games before the homer drought.
“He’s getting base hits. He’s getting on base. He’s creating traffic,” pitcher Nestor Cortes said. “The homers haven’t been there but I know they’ll come. He’s a big boy.”
Cortes thought back to Judge’s slow start. The Yankees captain was hitting .209 with six homers through May 4, when he was ejected by Ryan Blakney for uttering at the plate umpire with profanity after a seventh-inning called third strike against Detroit.
“You guys saw what happened in April,” Cortes told reporters. “He struggled a little bit and then he went on a tear. He probably needs to get thrown out again.”
