Exactly three years ago today, outfielder Aaron Judge hit a historic home run for the New York Yankees.
With the team leading 7-3 in the 6th inning against the Baltimore Orioles, the then 25-year-old hit a towering 495 foot homer to left field in Yankee Stadium. The home run is the longest by any Yankee player in the Statcast era. The ball almost made it to the concourse in left, something you don’t even see in batting practice. Here’s the towering shot down below:
This was one of the highlights for Judge in a campaign that saw him place second in MVP voting while running away with the Rookie of the Year award. He hit .284 with 52 home runs and 114 RBIs. His OBP was a whopping .422 as he led the league in walks, and had an OPS of 1.049. His 2017 performance propelled the Yankees to a wild card spot in a season where the team was not expected to make the postseason.
Unfortunately, a lot of Judge’s good luck didn’t carry over with him in the next two seasons. Both 2018 and 2019 saw IL stints, limiting him to just over 100 games in both years.
In 2020, Judge began spring training injured, but the team hopes to have him ready whenever the regular season begins. With the intentions of the season beginning to shift towards 50 games, it’s even more important to stay healthy and be on his A game. The 2020 season will see the team not just challenging their AL East foes, but their NL East foes as well. That includes the reigning World Series Champion Washington Nationals.
Hopefully, we see more 500 foot home runs coming from Aaron Judge in the near future.