Since Aaron Judge entered the majors near the end of the 2016 season, there has not been a more prolific — and fear-inducing — slugger than the New York Yankees superstar.
Listed at 6-foot-7, 282 pounds, Judge’s mix of size, power and patience makes him every pitcher’s nightmare. Nobody has hit more home runs than Judge’s 359 since his major league debut and nothing else can get an entire stadium to perk up in anticipation quite like when No. 99 steps to the plate.
Though a midseason right elbow injury slowed the pace a bit on what could have been his best work yet, Judge is putting the finishing touches on his fourth season with at least 40 home runs and his fourth straight with an OPS over 1.000 while, yet again, entering the final weeks with the American League MVP award within his reach.
We asked those who have faced Judge throughout his major league career — and some who first got their first taste of his power before the reigning AL MVP was a household name — to share their best Aaron Judge stories.
“Maybe I should start an Aaron Judge he’s-hit-a-home-run-off-me support group”
For better or worse, every pitcher who faces Judge today goes into the matchup knowing what he is up against. But there was a time when he had the element of surprise on his side as he rose through the ranks at Fresno State.
During the 2012 season, Mark Appel was the talk of college baseball. On March 2, the ace of No. 1-ranked Stanford baseball took the mound for a nonconference matchup against Judge’s Bulldogs unaware of what awaited him.
“We had very limited scouting. Video scouting was not really a widespread thing,” Appel recalled earlier this month. “So, we knew just based off of the numbers, but it was so early in the season. I don’t think he had a prolific freshman year. He was relatively unknown to us.
“I remember we went to Fresno, and they already had some fans — probably just some of his fellow classmates — that would go to the games, and they had this little chant for him whenever he came up, I can’t even remember what it was, but it’s like, ‘Here comes the Judge.'”
Judge entered that day with no home runs nine games into his sophomore season — after hitting just two his freshman year — but took Stanford’s ace deep twice in a stunning 7-4 upset.
And the legend of Judge was born.
Appel: We kind of walked in there — I think we were No. 1 in the country — like we’re just gonna kind of steamroll these guys, you know? And we did not. We did not.
We were so dumbfounded. We were like, ‘What is going on right now?’ I think I had just come off of a game [against Texas] where I threw seven innings, 10 punches, one run maybe. I was just dominant, you know? And then we go to this, a .500 Fresno State team, and they put up a seven spot on me.
Pretty sure that year I only gave up three home runs, and two of ’em were in that game to Aaron.
Erick Fedde, Milwaukee Brewers (UNLV, 2012-14): Back then, he obviously still had that presence of a big human. I guess I didn’t have that expectation of a perennial All-Star, best hitter, MVP caliber player, but you obviously knew he had power.
Appel: I had a big fastball, especially for college. So, I think Fresno State’s game plan against me was like, ‘Hey, look for the fastball, get on it early and just try to put a barrel on it.’ I left one just kind of middle-in, right in Aaron’s sweet spot, and he just — I mean, it was one of the hardest hit balls I’ve seen. It got out in a hurry.
Matthew Boyd, Chicago Cubs (Oregon State, 2011-13): The first year of the BBCOR bats … I just remember we were taking BP, and we were complaining because we thought the Nike BBCOR bats just stunk. And then when we go watch Fresno State, they’re swinging Easton bats, and this one freshman was just peppering the scoreboard. Just hearing this metal bang on the scoreboard every time and it’s like, ‘Oh, we’re complaining [to Nike] about the bats.’ And then come to realize it’s not the bats. That was Aaron Judge as a freshman.”
Fedde: I saw him hit some home runs off [my UNLV] teammates that were some of the farthest balls I’ve ever seen hit.
Appel: A year later, he gets drafted in the first round … my teammates are like, ‘He’s got you to thank for that. You’re the one that put him on the map.’ And now, in hindsight, I’m like, ‘OK, guys. Turns out this guy’s a generational kind of player. I think he’s proven that he was way better than me.’
When I got called up in 2022, every day it was the Aaron Judge Home Run Tracker. We are watching history here, and so I was like, ‘Man, this is cool.’ In some ways, I felt connected to him just because I was maybe part of the origin story of Aaron Judge.
Maybe I should start an Aaron Judge he’s-hit-a-home-run-off-me support group. Maybe that’s how I get to hang out with some cool dudes.
“He just turned on it, hit it — I mean it had to be 500 feet”
After jumping on the national radar with his feats against Appel at Fresno State, Judge firmly planted himself on MLB draft boards with his performance in the prestigious Cape Cod League the following summer.
The nature of the showcase league had Judge going up against future major league aces and other collegiate pitchers nearing the end of their careers.
Frederick Shepard now manages hedge funds in San Francisco and Anthony Montefusco is a tech salesman in Orlando, Florida. Neither has pitched in a decade, but both can still quickly recall their stories of pitching to Judge that summer.
Montefusco was coming off his sophomore year at George Mason and came out of the bullpen for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox to face Judge in the eighth inning on June 28, 2012. Montefusco attempted to run a fastball inside, caught too much of the strike zone and watched his pitch sail over the left-center-field fence never to be seen again.
“He just turned on it, hit it — I mean it had to be 500 feet, to the tops of the trees in their place at that point,” Montefusco recalled earlier this month.
Shepard, who pitched at Division III Amherst College, was a starting pitcher for the Wareham Gatemen that summer. On July 8, they visited Brewster, and his then-girlfriend Kristina Ballard was able to ride her bicycle to watch Shepard pitch from where she was working on the Cape.
That afternoon, she saw Aaron Judge turn on a pitch from her future husband and hit a home run that cleared the enormous trees that sat beyond the center-field fence, leaving an entire ballpark in awe.
Shepard: [Kristina] tells this story to this day — to anyone who will listen. She thinks it was so cool.
Montefusco has heard about his moment just as frequently because he grew up in New Jersey among a family of diehard Yankees fans. His mom’s favorite player? Aaron Judge.
Montefusco: I’m like, ‘How can you be after that home run?’ But it’s also hard not to be an Aaron Judge fan.
I remember getting him to two strikes. [Coach] called fastball inside, which … a physical specimen in the box, it’s always, ‘Get this ball in,’ but you don’t want to hit him. And I threw a decent pitch; he fouled it off.
Coach called fastball in again, and I was like, ‘Make sure you get it in,’ and left it kind of middle-middle, middle-third … Yeah, missed my spot, but he didn’t miss it.
Sean Manaea, New York Mets (Hyannis, 2012): I saw Aaron in the Cape, too, so I’ve really seen him all over the place.
The first thing is the size. It’s very hard to not notice that. He’s a very large human being. If I’m looking up to you, you’re a very big person because I’m a pretty big person. I remember shaking his hand and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s a pretty large hand.’ And obviously the baseball skills have been there for as long as I can remember.
Shepard: There’s nothing like standing there on the pitcher’s mound and Aaron Judge stepping to the plate, being all the way back in the box, all the way out, and you can’t pitch him anywhere. His bat reached the other batter’s box, and you couldn’t pitch him in because he was already off the plate as much as he could be. It was impossible.
Manaea: Funny story: I was throwing a no-hitter. I think into the seventh, eighth or ninth, something like that. And I hear a, one of their teammates in the dugout, is like, ‘Hey, let’s break up the no-hitter here!” And I’m like, ‘What?’ And then Judge was up, and he broke up the no-hitter.
Montefusco: It was one of those home runs that you give up and you’re not even that mad at, because of how far it was. I turned and watched it, and then my teammate from George Mason, he was on the team. I looked at him and he was laughing with his jaw on the floor.
“He’s definitely the focal point, right? His name stands out”
The challenge of facing Judge comes in two parts.
There’s the pitcher vs. slugger showdown that fans see on the field: A locked-in Judge standing 60 feet, six inches away, waiting to turn the slightest mistake into a souvenir for a fan seated 400-plus feet away in the outfield bleachers.
The mental battle begins long before that, starting in the pregame preparation when a pitcher realizes his task includes navigating a lineup with the sport’s premier long ball threat looming in the middle of it.
Max Fried, New York Yankees: I mean, he’s definitely the focal point, right? When you look at the lineup, you look at it and say, ‘You don’t want this guy to beat you.’
His name stands out so it’s definitely something you’re paying attention to and you know when he’s starting to come up or when his spot in the order is coming up.
Ryne Stanek, New York Mets: People pitch him scared and then have to come back, as opposed to being super aggressive. And I think that happens to a lot of other really good hitters. People are always super cautious and then have to go back at ’em and then they’re in such an advantage and it doesn’t work, especially when you’re facing really good hitters.
Manaea: From just the outside looking in, it’s not like he’s trying to hit home runs. It’s like he’s just trying to be a great hitter, which he is. And you could see that in the way he covers the fastball. He recognizes spin. He doesn’t strike out like a whole crazy amount.
Stanek: He doesn’t wildly chase, and he knows where he’s trying to hit the ball … he knows he doesn’t have to overswing to do damage, and he’s just got to put barrel on the ball.
Martin Perez, Chicago White Sox: We’re always talking about ‘Why you throw me this pitch’ but you have to be careful because he’s a powerful hitter. Anything he touches with the bat, it could be a homer.
Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers: “I haven’t quite figured out (how to prepare for him). If I had it figured out, his numbers wouldn’t be what they are.”
Stanek: I think guys that know they have enough juice to get it out of anywhere and they don’t overswing, it minimizes holes. I think that’s one thing that he’s done a really good job of over the course of his career. He knows who he is, and he knows what he’s trying to do.
Fried: You know if you leave a ball over the plate, it’s going to go a long way.
“I mean 6-foot-8, the visual’s already like, ‘Oh s—‘”
Once the plan of attack is in place, the only thing left for a pitcher to do is step on the mound and execute — which is easier said than done.
Few players have more experience toeing the rubber against Judge than two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell. The two arrived in the majors at the same time in the same division and immediately became stars on contenders. They have also developed a close friendship over the years.
That tight bond has led to some unique interactions around their matchups — but Snell is far from the only one who recognizes the unique challenge in facing the game’s tallest slugger.
Snell: I’m either going to strike him out or walk him. So, when he swings, that’s when he gets into trouble — because it’s not going to be in the zone. And I tell him that. He thinks I’m messing with him. He’s the only person I talk to like that.
I’ve told him since even before the big leagues: ‘Don’t swing.’ I mean 6-foot-8, the visual’s already like, ‘Oh s—t.’ He connects with it; he can hit something hard back at you.
Manaea: The intimidation of just how big he is and when he steps into the box, you really feel that … Just based off the fact of him stepping into the box and his presence … I feel like he leans into that, which he should.
Aaron Civale, Chicago Cubs: He’s a lot taller than the average hitter. The area you can throw the ball in the strike zone is a lot bigger, but he has a lot of coverage. There seems to be a lot of space to throw to, but he covers in and out of the zone.
Spencer Strider, Atlanta Braves: It looks like the zone is huge, but it’s still hard to throw him a strike. I’d say that’s the different visual, given how tall he is … It seems like you have all the space to work with but that’s the misleading aspect of it. He can cover all of it.
Matt Strahm, Philadelphia Phillies: I try to [block] out [the hitter] and throw whatever pitch the catcher calls. But I’m not going to lie, you can feel when someone 6-foot-6 gets in the box.
Aaron Nola, Philadelphia Phillies: You face hitters all around the league, but when you face Judge, it looks weird, because he’s bigger than everything around him.
Robbie Ray, San Francisco Giants: The zone kinda changes with him. The fastball up has to be on. A fastball up to a Cody Bellinger or a Paul Goldschmidt, isn’t as high as it is for an Aaron Judge. The fastball up has to be up. Almost to eye level of somebody else.
Strahm: It’s almost like he casts a shadow over your target. I don’t want to say intimidating, but his presence is just known.
Charlie Morton, Detroit Tigers: As an opposing player or opposing pitcher, it’s like, ‘Man, here comes Aaron Judge.’ He’s one of the best in the league. But I also just really appreciate what he’s done for baseball. How he carries himself. How he goes about his business is great.
Joe Ryan, Minnesota Twins: He’s the captain and everything. It’s real. I never met Jeter, but it feels like they recreated Jeter in a lab or something for the modern era. He’s a beast out there.
“I could’ve sworn that ball was 60 rows deep”
No matter the plan going into the at-bat, giving up long home runs is an occupational hazard those who face Judge have come to accept — and those mammoth blasts stay with a pitcher forever.
Perhaps no pitcher has a more remarkable story to tell of Judge’s prestigious power than reliever Jason Adam‘s lasting memory of a time he was sure he had surrendered a tying home run at the crack of the bat.
The then-Rays closer immediately bent over on the mound with his hands on his knees, not even bothering to look to see where the ball landed. When Adam did finally turn his head, he was pleasantly surprised by the sight of outfielder Jose Siri catching the towering fly ball at the warning track. Big sigh of relief. Game over.
Adam: I could’ve sworn that ball was 60 rows deep. And I was like, ‘No way.’ I mean, he smacked it. But it was high.
That was a hilarious moment because I was like, ‘I just blew the game.’ And then I look up and I see Siri camping. I was like, ‘No way.’ And then I looked at him and he was laughing. So, yeah, that was a fun moment.
Other pitchers haven’t been quite so fortunate.
Chris Sale, Boston Red Sox: He got me at Fenway, dead center, like 2017 or 2018, it was pretty early on. Pretty sure it was a fastball. It was one of those off the bat, forget about it. It was a solo home run, and we were winning by a lot, so it didn’t bother all that much. But right off the bat, it was like ‘I’m getting a new ball.’
Boyd: He had raw power at all times. I remember he hit a homer off me in High-A Tampa, and it was one of those ones where I felt like I tried to flinch for a line drive, and it went out over the center-field wall. It was that hard.
Kyle Freeland, Colorado Rockies: You got to respect it. The one in Colorado earlier this year, we kind of had a pretty decent battle in his first at-bat. And I want to say we were up around eight, nine pitches in the at-bat, threw a well-located fastball down and away, and he put a really good swing on it, went backside into our bullpen.
The other one was in New York last year. Again, I want to say it was a pretty decent battle of an at-bat, and we went hard fastball in off the plate, and he was able to keep his hands in and put the barrel and hit it.
Shane Baz, Tampa Bay Rays: It was the third pitch. I threw a cutter right down the middle and he hit it out. It stayed right over the heart of the plate. … He’s just very talented. He stays back well.
Skubal: He’s got power to all fields so it doesn’t really matter where it’s going. If he’s hitting it hard, it has a chance to leave the yard. The one last year was a sinker to right field so it was — that’s what I’m saying, he’s got power to all yards.
Boyd: One year in Scranton, Buck Farmer and I and the wives were out to dinner. We were pitching Game 1 and 2 of the series and we were at dinner and Aaron saw us and picked up our check. That meant a ton.
We weren’t making much money back then and even got dessert. I was like, ‘Oh, that was really cool.’ He said hi on the way in and didn’t even tell us. Just picked it up and left.
And the next day Buck started, he hit two homers off Buck and the next day after I started, he hit a homer off me. … He did something nice for us and still hit a homer off me.”
Freeland: Getting to face guys like Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman — those big-name superstars in our game. Those are guys you want to be facing. You want to match up against those guys. You remember those. You remember when you punch their ticket, and you remember when they get a big hit off you for a home run.
Skubal: He’s the game’s best. That’s the beautiful part about this game. You get to compete at the highest level and you tip your cap when they do things like that because that’s special. You gotta be a special player to be able to do stuff like that and he’s one of those guys.
“He’s not seeing this. Keep throwing him this pitch”
Baseball is a game of failure for even the best sluggers and many pitchers have their own tales to tell of the times they’ve gotten the best of Judge.
Having sustained success against him is rare though, and Chris Sale has had as much as anyone over the years — having struck out Judge 17 times in 27 at-bats while limiting him to a .185 batting average.
“You have to be locked in, that’s for sure,” Sale said. “The back of his baseball card speaks for itself. You know that any mistake can be costly, especially if there are runners on.”
Some pitchers are eager to share their tales of glory — while others prefer to keep their tricks tucked away for the next time they need them.
Ryan: I’ve made some good pitches, kept him off-balance, maybe kept him guessing a little bit. Those are the main things.
[Former Twins teammate] Nick Gordon was breaking it down after I faced him. ‘He’s not seeing this. Keep throwing him this pitch.’ I kept doing it. It worked a little bit.
Fried: I remember the ones from last year. I threw a fastball that kind of beat him at the top of the zone, and I threw a 2-2 curveball.
Genesis Cabrera, Minnesota Twins: I attacked the zone. I threw a couple curves really well, that’s why he missed it.
Adam: You know his weaknesses; you know his strengths. He knows what I throw him. So, there’s an element of just trying to maintain unpredictability.
He’s the best in the world, but good pitches will still typically get him out, so you just try to make good pitches and trust the odds are still in your favor.
Perez: I can’t tell you the spot to get him out. I might be facing him [again]. For me it’s location. It’s not about velocity.
Of course, against Judge, success is measured a little differently.
Fried: You just have to really be careful of making the pitches and I think there’s also an element of ‘If you walk him, it’s not the end of the world.’
Snell: The rest of the team I’m going to challenge and all that. But him? I’m not going to let him be the one to get me.”
