{"id":661674,"date":"2026-04-03T22:54:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T22:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661674\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T22:54:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T22:54:17","slug":"aaron-judge-sets-tone-with-text-hr-in-yankees-home-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661674\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Judge sets tone with text, HR in Yankees’ home opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — Late Thursday night, with theNew York Yankees<\/a>‘ home opener the next morning, Aaron Judge<\/a> shot a mass text to his teammates: Suits tomorrow.<\/p>\n

It’s a directive the captain has occasionally communicated over the years. He sought to set a tone and his teammates complied, reporting to work at Yankee Stadium for the first of 81 home games in their finest threads.<\/p>\n

A few hours later, the three-time American League MVP set the tone from the batter’s box, crushing a two-run home run in his first plate appearance at home this season to give the Yankees a lead they didn’t relinquish in an 8-2 victory over the Miami Marlins<\/a> in front of a sellout crowd of 48,788.<\/p>\n

“That’s what he does best,” Yankees first baseman Ben Rice<\/a> said. “Coming out, swinging out the gate like that for us is huge. It’s just so contagious and got everybody going.”<\/p>\n

The blast off Marlins right-hander Eury Perez<\/a> was Judge’s third home run in seven games this season. An inning later, he was hit by a pitch on his right forearm with the bases loaded, prompting gasps and brief panic throughout the ballpark. But Judge emerged unscathed and stayed in the game.<\/p>\n

“I’ve broken my wrist like that so that’s always the main concern,” said Judge, who missed six weeks in 2018 with a fractured right wrist after getting plunked. “But once you feel like everything’s intact, you get to first and you keep going and doing your job.”<\/p>\n

Judge walked in the sixth inning and singled in the eighth before stealing his first base of the season and scoring on Rice’s two-run double. His steal was one of the Yankees’ five on the day as New York took an aggressive approach on the basepaths, taking extra bases whenever possible against a Marlins pitching staff that also issued 11 walks.<\/p>\n

Yankees pitching, meanwhile, did not walk a batter. Will Warren<\/a> surrendered two solo home runs over 5 innings — the first home runs the Yankees allowed this season — before four Yankees relievers combined to hold the Marlins without a hit.<\/p>\n

In all, the Yankees have given up eight runs this season, tied with the 2002 San Francisco Giants<\/a> and 1993 Atlanta Braves<\/a> for the fewest allowed by a team through seven games in major league history. The dominance has propelled the Yankees to a 6-1 start for the second time in three seasons.<\/p>\n

“It’s early, but you love the fact that you get off to this kind of start because wins are precious,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — Late Thursday night, with theNew York Yankees‘ home opener the next morning, Aaron Judge shot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[84389,5,649,18092,4,1690,62,169,2548,2547,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-661674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-yankees","8":"tag-84389","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-espn","11":"tag-judge-aaron","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-yankees","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkyankees","18":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116343241174101045","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661674","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=661674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}