Last night’s 6-3 loss in Game 1 of the World Series is perhaps the most crushing one the Yankees have suffered in the last decade. A game that they could have won multiple times if not for defensive mishaps, they had to just get one more out to claim victory and saw that chance fly out of the yard with a Freddie Freeman blast. It’s one of those losses that makes you evaluate each and every blunder, but there’s one player who has continued to let the team down. The Yankees simply cannot win the World Series without Aaron Judge, and last night was another flat showing from the captain.
Time has run out for excuses, if the results don’t show tonight, Aaron Judge will shoulder the brunt of the blame for the Yankees’ failure to win the World Series.
Aaron Judge Has Run Out Of Time, Yankees Need Their Leader
It’s been a brutal postseason for Aaron Judge, who has a -4.0 % Championship Win Probability Added in the postseason for the Yankees. They’ve won in spite of their captain, whose Game 3 blast against Emmanuel Clase remains the only big moment he’s delivered thus far in October. With an 85 wRC+ and 34.8% K%, he’s murdering the Yankees, especially in high-leverage situations where he’s failed time and time again.
Aaron Judge has 13 trips to the plate with RISP, and despite that he’s yet to deliver a single hit, going 0-8 with three walks and two sacrifice flies. The Yankees cannot continue to get this kind of production from their star bat, who has single-handily killed rallies for them in the postseason. Giancarlo Stanton’s heroics have helped mask the pitiful performance Judge has put up, but these are beyond unacceptable numbers for the best player in the game.
The stars were out in Los Angeles tonight, yet Aaron Judge was the only one who didn’t show up. It’s a common theme for the captain at this point, who holds a .753 OPS and 103 wRC+ in 54 playoff games. If there were ever a time to change that narrative, it would have to be tonight.
For someone who has enough power in the organization to help conduct trades such as the one that landed Alex Verdugo this past winter, the play in October cannot be anything less than cerebral. You cannot act like LeBron James and perform like Iman Shumpert in the postseason, and no piece of data would suggest that the Yankees’ run to the World Series is because of Judge.
It’s hard to argue that a team had a bad season if they won the pennant, but it’s impossible not to argue that an individual player didn’t fail if they saw their wRC+ drop by over 100 points in the postseason. Aaron Judge has to set the tone for this offense in Game 2 after one of the worst losses they’ve suffered in years, and this team has shown an ability to respond to bad losses.
This team needs it’s captain, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto could be the right matchup for Aaron Judge if he’s going to change the narrative tonight.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws two pitches that Aaron Judge absolutely demolishes in the four-seamer and splitter, and while I expect a heavy dosage of sliders away to try and get whiffs, Judge can do damage here. In his first matchup with the Japanese-born ace, he went 1-2 with a double and walk, and while that’s not nearly enough of a sample size to determine whether he sees Yamamoto well or not, there are reasons to like this matchup for the Yankees.
The time has run out for excuses; it’s time for Aaron Judge to show up or else the increased presence in front office conversations should be reviewed in the offseason. Leaders need to show up on the field, and part of being the captain of the New York Yankees includes showing up in these pivotal games. With the Yankees down 0-1 in the series, the ball is in Judge’s court to take matters into his own hands and get the job done; and he’s only one swing away from finding it.