– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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NEW YORK — Slump? What slump? Aaron Judge was just waiting for the right time to make his next pennant-chasing-altering blast, and did just that on Friday night.
Also didn’t hurt that it came against the New York Yankees’ hated rival, to boot.
Judge snapped the longest home run drought of his career with a seventh-inning grand slam as the Yankees defeated the Boston Red Sox 5-4 inside Yankee Stadium to begin a four-game set. The blast was his Major League-leading 52nd homer of the season as the Yankees have now opened up a three-game lead over the Baltimore Orioles in the American League East, New York’s largest lead in the division since June 14.
Going into his at bat against left-hander Cam Booser in the seventh, and after the Yankees had scored a run on a Gleyber Torres single to cut Boston’s lead to 4-1, Judge had gone 16 games and 75 at-bats without a long ball, the longest home run drought in both categories in his already storied career. Booser walked Juan Soto on four pitches to load the bases for Judge, and after getting ahead 2-0 on the count, Judge launched a fastball into the lower bleachers in left to send the crowd of 45,000-plus into a frenzy.
“I really don’t focus on hitting homers,” Judge said. “I don’t focus on any of that. Sixteen games, is that a lot or not? I don’t know. It’ll probably be longer at some point in my career.”
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Monday evening’s game, with photos taken by ALOST staff photographer Roberto Carlo. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page. Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 33 pictures in total.
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