During a road trip to his home state over the past week, Aaron Judge continued his historic home run chase. When the Yankees’ slugger went yard on Monday against the Angels, he became the seventh different player ever to hit 50 homers before September. The following night, he launched No. 51.
Judge has virtually no chance of equaling Barry Bonds’s single-season record of 73 home runs, but that shouldn’t diminish what he is doing this season. The top six single-season home run totals are all attributed to Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, three players who used performance-enhancing drugs (In 2012, McGwire admitted to using steroids during his career; Bonds and Sosa have denied it, but there is strong evidence that they took PEDs.) The seventh-highest total of 61, however, belongs to former Yankees great Roger Maris, who holds the American League record for the most single-season homers. Judge and Maris are the only two AL players to reach 50 home runs before September.
Sixty-one still carries weight in baseball as the “clean” home run record, and it’s well within reach for Judge. After launching 51 home runs in New York’s first 131 contests, Judge needs 11 home runs over the final 31 games to pass Maris; he’s on pace for 63. The 30-year-old has racked up five long balls in his last nine games, so he certainly doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
