I don’t normally select moments from losses to feature in AB of the Week, but wins have been scarce for the Yankees of late. The offense was the culprit for much of their June swoon, but the bats finally came alive against the Blue Jays only for the pitching staff to collapse around them. This was especially true of Wednesday’s game against the Blue Jays, starter Will Warren putting his team in a seven-run hole after the first inning. The bats rallied as admirably as I can remember this season, leading to a climactic moment from Aaron Judge.
We join Judge with one out in the eighth, the offense having fought all the way back to make a contest of this game. Ben Rice stands on first after drawing a walk, and after Judge had singled, doubled, and been issued an intentional walk, the Blue Jays would have been more than justified to put up the four fingers again. Instead, they choose to pitch to Judge rather than put the tying run on the bases.
Reliever Yimi García looks to bury a sinker in on Judge’s hands with the first pitch, perhaps hoping he can induce the inning-ending double play.
This is just a nasty pitch to throw to open an at-bat. This sinker exits García’s hand aimed well into the strike zone before its ridiculous arm-side movement runs it a foot off the plate inside. I’m not sure any batter in baseball is hitting this pitch.
After getting Judge to chase a sinker that started over the plate before running in almost two feet, the natural choice would be to throw a pitch that breaks in the opposite direction. If he can start a sweeper aimed at the outside edge, it should look like a sinker that will break into the heart of the zone.
That’s exactly what García does, making this sweeper look like a very hittable sinker, only for its movement to carry it into the opposite batter’s box. Talk about two unfair pitches in a row to open this AB. It’s honestly impressive Judge was almost able to check his swing on this pitch, and in truth he probably got a raw deal from the first base umpire on the appeal,
In an instant, Judge is in the hole, 0-2, and fighting to stay alive in what in all likelihood will be his last chance to bat in this game. After getting chases and whiffs against two different pitches to open the AB, García continues to mix things up hoping for the same result against a curveball below the zone.
This is such an impressive take from Judge. The curveball looks like it is heading right down the middle before falling off the table about halfway to the plate. I’ve always felt that a centrally located breaking ball that drops below the zone is a way harder take than your stereotypical down-and-away slider to a righty because the ball remains over the plate for its entire journey toward home.
Following two straight breaking balls, García changes speeds back up to the fastball hoping he can blow Judge away with the nine mph of added velocity.
Once again, this is an outrageously good take from Judge. Even if he correctly diagnoses fastball out of the hand, the one fastball he’s seen in this count was a sinker 26 inches of drop and 21 inches of arm-side movement — in other words, one that should drop right onto his barrel from this release. However, this is García’s four-seamer, with much less drop and arm-side movement than the sinker, allowing it to hold its plane in the vertical and horizontal directions rather than move into the zone, and yet there’s somehow barely a flinch from Judge as he takes the pitch to level the count.
García has now seen Judge spit on two straight well-executed chase pitches but knows Judge wasn’t quite able to hold up against the sweeper, so he returns to that pitch as his put-away choice.
When you are a feared hitter, if you’re lucky you might get one good pitch to hit in an AB, so you better not miss it. García mis-executed his first pitch of the encounter, hanging this sweeper inside when he meant to throw it off the plate away, and boy did Judge not miss it. It is such a fitting culmination to an impressive battle from Judge, as David Cone mentioned on the broadcast to battle back from 0-2 by taking two close pitches and then making sure to punish the one mistake he got. Simply elite hitting at its finest.
Here’s the full at-bat:
Courtesy of Baseball Savant
The worst part in all of this is that this moment and the broader comeback effort were all for naught, Devin Williams melting down in the bottom half of the frame to hand the lead right back to the Blue Jays. Judge certainly did his part in the series against Toronto, managing to do quite a bit of damage despite being intentionally walked five times. However, even he couldn’t carry the weight of a pitching implosion, and the Yankees were swept in four games to fall to second in the division. That being said, it appears Judge has snapped out of the slump he endured in June, which is good news for the Yankees if they want to turn their fortunes around in the second half.