New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge wasted no time moving past another all-time great on the team’s career home run list Thursday night.
Just two days after passing Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra for fifth place on the franchise list, Judge hit home runs in his first two at-bats in a 9-3 victory against the Detroit Tigers to tie another Hall of Famer, Joe DiMaggio, for fourth with 361 career home runs.
Hall of Famers Babe Ruth (659 homers), Mickey Mantle (536) and Lou Gehrig (493) are ahead of Judge on the Yankees’ career homers list.
“Joe DiMaggio, Joe DiMaggio, it feels like that’s been there forever,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Joe DiMaggio in a lot of ways transcended baseball. So to be next to him on the list and as he’s going to be waving as he’s going by, it’s impressive and a bit of privilege having a front-row seat to that.”
With President Donald Trump in attendance to mark the 24-year anniversary of 9/11 on Thursday, the two-time MVP got the Yankees on the board with a 413-foot blast to left-center field off Tyler Holton for his 18th home run in the first inning this season, which ties a major league record set by himself (2024) and Alex Rodriguez (2001).
“It’s just an important day for all of us to come together, so it’s just kind of a surreal moment, surreal day,” Judge said.
Judge reached 45 home runs in a season for the fourth time, which is tied with Gehrig for the second most in Yankees history behind Ruth (nine).
It didn’t take Judge long to hit No. 46 and tie DiMaggio. In the third inning, Judge hammered a 434-foot shot — also to left-center field with an exit velocity of 114.9 mph — on a 1-0 fastball from Sawyer Gipson-Long to give the Yankees a 4-1 lead.
Judge tied DiMaggio in his 1,129th regular-season game and has nine homers in 33 contests since returning from the injured list last month.
He had three hits and ended the night with a major league-best .322 batting average, three points ahead of Athletics rookie shortstop Jacob Wilson. It was the 45th career multi-home run game for Judge, which ranks third in Yankees history behind Ruth (68) and Mantle (46).
Holton and Gipson-Long became the 272nd and 273rd pitchers to allow a homer to Judge, who has six multihomer games this season.
ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
