Aaron Judge Is Saving Me From Going Insane

This month of April has been one of the worst in recent years for any Yankees fan. Now the team is 9-8, the season is nowhere near over, but when you look at what our most hated rivals are doing that’s where it becomes tough to swallow. The Boston Red Sox are not only off to a great start, they’re off to the best start by ANY TEAM IN THIRTY ONE YEARS. Every goddamn night they’re destroying teams. They just went into Los Angeles and took on the hot-start Angels. The scores of those games? 10-1. 9-0, 8-2. Then we look across to the other league and who of all fuckers is leading over there? Oh just the casual 13-5 New York Metropolitans. The adversity us Yankees fans are being put through would kill a weaker bunch, but we’re hanging tough for now.

Thank God last night the Yankees got back in the winning column, beating the Jays 4-3. A big reason the Yankees have any of their nine wins is a man named Aaron Judge. Last night he played a huge part in sneaking out the W with his blast off Tyler Clippard in the 7th.

The 6’7 282 pound behemoth has picked up right where he left off last year by just hitting everything in sight. It was tough to tell if Judge was going to be able to put on an encore performance from last year when he hit 52 homers (breaking the rookie record) knocking in 114 men, resulting in a unanimous rookie of the year honor and a runner-up to the MVP. So what has he had in store for 2018 so far? Just your casual .339/.481/1.110 with five homers and 12 RBIs. Another surprising stat is his league leading 16 walks only compared to 19 strikeouts. Every at bat puts a strain on the pitcher with every count seemingly going 3-2. He’s simply become an impossible person to pitch to anymore. Last year he faced the most sliders in all of baseball and had the 3rd lowest average against them. In 2017 he would constantly wave and miss on a slider away and frustrate the hell out us. This year? He’s leading the league in hitting against the same pitch. He didn’t waste his offseason being happy go lucky on his great year. Nope, he wanted more.

I didn’t know if he could get any better, but he has somehow. I didn’t know if he’d be able to handle Stanton coming to town and having to share the spotlight? He’s done it marvelously while Giancarlo has crumbled. Maybe it’s helped him out at the plate knowing there’s a guy in the lineup of his caliber who can’t hit a goddamn thing thrown to him? Whatever it is, we really need to appreciate what Aaron Judge is doing for this team because him hitting in the 2 hole might be the most dangerous slot for any hitter in any baseball lineup. When you have Gardner leading off and getting on base at the rate he’s doing, and then behind Judge you have Didi, Stanton, and Gary there’s just no way to get Judge out at the plate. If Judge was slumping, or not off to the start he’s off to right now, who knows if the Yankees have even five wins.

All Rise. Fuck Mookie Betts. Buy a shirt.