In the strange, paranormal world known as hitting, in which lucky socks or a borrowed bat are believed to carry superpowers, there is one five-letter unwelcome interloper who might as well be known as He Who Will Not be Named. Hitters do not even like to use the word “slump,” no less acknowledge such an enemy exists, such are its negative forces.
“I’m not in a slump,” premier hardball sensei Yogi Berra once said. “I just ain’t hitting.”
At its worst, though, a slump is unmistakable, even if it is unspeakable. For Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees, it has grown as large as the man itself. It cannot be ignored.
One of the great sluggers of this generation cannot get out of his own way. He is taking strikes and swinging at balls. He is late on fastballs and early on breaking pitches. He has struck out 19 times in 11 games this postseason while batting .150.
Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday was a new low. Judge struck out swinging three times on pitches out of the zone, only the 16th time he had done so in his career. The Yankees again could not survive without some positive energy from their captain, losing 4–2 to the Los Angeles Dodgers to fall in the series two games to none.
Judge never did speak the word “slump” after the game, as he parried different versions of the question: What the heck is wrong? He didn’t have to speak it. Accountable as he was, Judge gave away one of the root causes of his slump by how many times he used the same two words, with emphasis added:
“I’ve definitely got to step up. I got to do my job.”
“Especially with Gleyber [Torres] and what Juan [Soto] did at the top of the lineup, I've got to back them up.”
“They're going to keep getting on base. I've got to drive them in or move them over.”
“My boys are going to keep picking me up, but I’ve got to step up and pick them up, too.”
“It’s plain and simple. I got to start swinging at strikes.”
“Got to.” It’s the telltale admission of a hitter pressing. Judge knows how important he is to the Yankees. He knows at age 32 that he has waited his professional career to have this opportunity of playing in the World Series. And worse, he knows this October slump spans years. He is stringing together a legacy of empty postseason at-bats that is only getting harder to turn around.
In 55 postseason games, Judge is a career .199 hitter who is striking out 34% of his plate appearances, which is pretty much the regular season career of Mike Zunino. Judge has whiffed 85 times—12 more than anybody else in postseason history through 55 games (next closest is Cody Bellinger, 73).
Is there any one factor, someone wondered, that you can put your finger on?
“Just expanding the zone,” he said. “You know, that's really what it comes down to. You got to get a pitch in the zone and drive it. And if you don’t, don’t try to make something happen.”
It’s the obvious place to start. Judge chased pitches during the regular season at a rate of 18.7%, a career low. In the postseason it has spiked to 29.3%. He is 0-for-10 on 34 chase swings.
But it’s more than that. It’s mechanical. Manager Aaron Boone talked about Judge not able to get into his load position on time to fire off a good swing. He has hit sometimes with his feet in a slightly open stance and sometimes in the neutral stance that served him well in May when he crawled out of his season-opening 35-game slump. His swing is more uphill. He is falling across the plate when he misses a pitch away, a sign of a balance issue. Teammate Anthony Rizzo suspects a timing problem.
“It’s one of those intervals,” as Rizzo referred to He Who Will Not be Named. “You know, I think it just takes one feel. If you're asking [what’s wrong] the first thing is it's probably just timing.”
But there is a mental component that is starting to surface: an inability to get off his "A" swing when the moment is there. He is often caught in between on his swing decisions.
I had a specific pitch in mind from Game 2—a 2–0, 94-mph fastball from Dodgers starter Yoshi Yamamoto that froze him in the sixth inning—when I asked Judge whether he felt he had pitches to hit.
“Yeah, 2–0, Yamamoto, I think my third at bat,” Judge said. “He kind of grooved me a heater down and in. You know, when we're going well, we can fire on that. Then the next pitch is a curveball that we foul off. I just have to have a little bit better swing on those two.”
So deep is the valley in which Judge walks these days that Boone was looking at pop-ups for signs of life. He said before the game that a pop-up against reliever Blake Treinen in Game 1 had the ingredients of a turnaround for Judge.
“He threw me a four seamer, kind of up and in, and I just missed it,” Judge said. “I'd rather get the job done in that situation, but I felt better. But like I said, it comes down to I’ve got to get the job done.
“We're getting close. … I couldn't transfer it over to this game. You know, like I said, it comes down to you’ve got to be disciplined in my strike zone. That's what got us in this position all year long. So, just got to get back to that.”
Got to. Give credit, too, to how well the Dodgers have pitched Judge in the World Series. In Game 2 they threw Judge 21 pitches. Only twice did they double up on the same pitch within an at-bat—and each time Judge was fooled and struck out on a chase swing.
Here is how Yamamoto pitched Judge in terms of speed variation from pitch to pitch:
First at-bat, starting at 96 mph: -16, +17, -10, -8, -7, -1.
Second at-bat, starting at 80 mph: -5, +21, -10, +9.
Third at-bat, starting at 95 mph: -6, +5, -18, +16.
That is exquisite execution changing speeds.
Judge is the kind of impactful hitter who is always just one swing away. He broke his April slump, for instance, with a May 5 homer off Tarik Skubal in his first at-bat when he squared up his feet.
“You’ve got to make your plate this big,” teammate Giancarlo Stanton said, holding his hands together roughly in the shape of a hamburger. “You feel like your plate is this big,” he pushed his hands far apart, “and you just have got to compress it. No, it’s not mechanical. He's going to help us win games here.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Aaron Judge's Slump That Shall Not Be Named Risks Dragging Down Yankees.
