in the series opener<\/a>, Judge granted A\u2019s owner John Fisher his wish Saturday in an 11-7 loss by the Yankees. <\/p>\nHe led off the fourth inning with a homer off JP Sears and then connected again to lead off the sixth against Justin Sterner to the delight of the Yankees fans in attendance, many of whom chanted \u201cMVP! MVP!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot surprising,\u201d Yankees starter Carlos Rodon said. \u201cOnce again putting on great swings like he always does. Really good player.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second homer gave Judge 14 on the season and gave him 41 career multi-homer games \u2014 fourth most in Yankees history.<\/p>\n
Judge leads the majors in batting average (.396), on-base percentage (.486), slugging percentage (.772) homers and RBIs (37).<\/p>\n
When the A\u2019s announced their plans last season to play in this minor league park, Fisher said he was excited to see what players like Judge could do in a stadium known for offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited to be here for the next three years playing in this beautiful ballpark, but also being able to watch some of the best players in baseball, whether they be Athletics players or Aaron Judge and others launch home runs out of this very intimate, the most intimate ballpark in all of Major League Baseball,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The ball carried well for everyone with the teams combining for six homers \u2014 including a go-ahead, three-run shot by Shea Langeliers for the A\u2019s that pitcher Fernando Cruz was shocked carried over the wall.<\/p>\n
Cruz said he went to back up home plate, assuming it would be a potential sacrifice fly only to see the ball carry out. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the same for all of us,\u201d Cruz said. \u201cIt\u2019s the same for the other team, the same for me, the same for my other teammates. Just have to come back tomorrow and do the same thing, pitch and locate a little better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Games at this stadium that had previously been solely used in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League have had a combined 2.75 home runs per game \u2014 up more than 40% from the rate of homers hit last season at the Oakland Coliseum. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure as the summer builds up and the heat builds up, the PCL is known for that,\u201d Yankees manager Aaron Boone said about the way the ball carries. \u201cI\u2019d be speaking out of turn if I said I knew how this place is going to play throughout. Today was a little different throughout.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/MLB<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Aaron Judge celebrated his return to the Sacramento area by hitting two home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1797,106,537,5,1932,2178,2004,8635,769,6616,2125,4,256,1690,62,1215,5217,3442,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-19819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-aaron-boone","9":"tag-aaron-judge","10":"tag-athletics","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-ca-state-wire","13":"tag-california","14":"tag-carlos-rodon","15":"tag-fernando-cruz","16":"tag-jp-sears","17":"tag-justin-sterner","18":"tag-minor-league-baseball","19":"tag-mlb","20":"tag-mlb-baseball","21":"tag-new-york","22":"tag-new-york-yankees","23":"tag-ny-state-wire","24":"tag-sacramento","25":"tag-shea-langeliers","26":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114492046473384152","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}