Lately, the New York Yankees have been wondering how many home runs Aaron Judge will end up hitting in 2024. He is only 11 home runs away from equalling his own American League HR record. In 2022, the California native broke the 1961 record of Roger Maris of hitting 61 homers in a single season. He made it to 62 in that season. As a result, he was a clear favorite for winning the American League Most Valued Player award. And he did win it, beating the then-reigning MVP winner Shohei Ohtani. Albeit, last year, the Unicorn did win it back.
Now, Ohtani has joined the Los Angeles Dodgers, and as a result, he moved to the National League. This year, the Yankees captain seems to have a freeway to winning the AL MVP. On the other hand, Shohei Ohtani is dominating the National League right now. But Aaron Judge seems to be on another level this regular season. He is leading the league in several categories, including, home runs, RBIs, and OPS. His current form doesn’t surprise Aaron Boone, the manager.
Aaron Boone Believes, “Aaron Judge Doesn’t Need To Be On Fire”
The Yankees captain has set impossibly high expectations for himself and he is living up to most of them. That has helped the team as a whole as the NY side is enjoying their position now in the AL East division. Currently, they are on the top and has the best record in the American League. A large credit for that goes to the 2022 AL MVP. On Sunday, the home crowd at the Yankee Stadium with 41,324 attendance witnessed the captain hit his 50th & 51st home run of the season. Eventually, the Bronx Bombers blew the Colorado Rockies 10-3 that day. Since the California native performs like a cheat code in a video game, it has always been newsworthy whenever he fails to live up to the impossibly high expectations.
As per Forbes, Aaron Boone mentioned that at present he does not feel like the captain is on fire. He added, “I don’t feel anything like that, Judge is just that good.” Even Aaron Judge gave a response to Boone’s comment, saying, “I agree.” It is always hard to crack the poker face of the Yankees captain. But he slightly grinned when he mentioned, “Let us get locked in first. Then, I’ll let everybody know, but now there’s a lot of work still left to do.” The kind of form, the California native is in this season, he can break so many records and make history.
The Yankees Captain Favorite To Win MVP
Aaron Judge has been enjoying the greatest single season 96 game stretch since May, 2024. He did not have a great start to the ongoing regular season. Moreover, he started with an early season slump throughout the month of April. However, since Judge got back into his groove in the month of May, he has been hitting .383 which is an incomprehensible number. Adding to that, the California native has hit 45 more homers since May, along with 104 RBIs.
He could have had an even better number if he had a great start in April. In the first month of the 2024 regular season, the 2022 AL MVP was hitting .197 with six home runs, a .725 OPS and 18 RBIs. Since then, the Yankees captain has turned things around remarkably well, becoming the favorite to win the 2024 AL MVP as well.
Stay tuned to Sports News International for more such updates about your favorite MLB team.