MIAMI – Everybody, let’s just settle down for a minute. Aaron Judge is a beast with the potential to be the transcendent star Major League Baseball is seeking to connect with a new generation of fans, but asking him if he thinks of himself as the next Babe Ruth? Seriously?
“No,” the New York Yankees right-fielder replied earnestly, giving perhaps the most asinine query of all-star week earnest and polite treatment. “I just think of myself as a little kid from Linden, California getting to live a dream right now.”
Beyond the can-you-believe-it power, the impossible athleticism for a slugger who stands six-foot-seven and 282 pounds, and the menacing swing that’s patched up the holes exposed last year, it’s his comfort and deft touch in the spotlight that makes Judge a superstar baseball execs can dream on.
He’s not as edgy as Bryce Harper, or as flashy as Giancarlo Stanton, but he’s willing to stand there and play the role in a way Mike Trout is reluctant to, and in today’s content-churn world, that counts for a lot.
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Especially since Judge is one of the game’s most compelling players right now, bolstered further by his epic performance in the home run derby win. Even in going 0-for-3 during his all-star game debut for the American League in Tuesday’s 2-1, 10-inning victory over the National League, he was a focal point, and it’s impossible not to expect something majestic every time he steps into the batter’s box.
This time the memorable moments came from others, including 37-year-old Nelson Cruz going all millennial by bringing his cellphone to the plate in the bottom of the sixth, handing it to Yadier Molina and getting the St. Louis Cardinals catcher to snap a picture of him and home plate umpire Joe West.
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Miguel Sano, the 24-year-old Minnesota Twins masher who finished second to Judge in the derby, opened the scoring with an RBI single in the fifth and Molina, proving he’s not just a solid photographer, tied it up for the NL with a solo shot in the sixth.
And after both Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel worked out of jams in the ninth, Robinson Cano won it in the 10th with a solo shot off Wade Davis, the lone Chicago Cubs all-star. Andrew Miller worked around a two-out walk to Canadian Joey Votto to close out the American League’s fifth straight win, evening the all-time record between the two loops in the Midsummer Classic at 43-43-2.
Good game with a little room for levity as this time it didn’t really matter with home-field advantage in the World Series no longer going to the victor.
“That picture was funny, I really liked it, that’s why I said this game is fun,” Cano said of Cruz’s stunt, which the two discussed in the dugout beforehand, impressed that West recently hit 5,000 career games. “[Cruz] told me that he told Joe, ‘I want to take a picture with you.’ [West] was like, ‘Oh, come on, get in the box.’ And Yadi said, ‘Yeah, give me the phone,’ and he took the picture. That was one of the best moments in the game.”
Justin Smoak, another of the 28 first-time all-stars, enjoyed a solid showing in the contest, his single in the second off Pat Neshek giving him the first hit in the Midsummer Classic by a Toronto Blue Jays player since Jose Bautista’s single in 2011. He added a four-pitch walk off Carlos Martinez in the fourth before his night came to an end, left to enjoy the latest accolade of his long elusive breakout season.
“Confidence-wise, it’s high,” he said of where he’s at right now. “I always felt like I was confident, but when you struggle like I have and worked as hard as I have the last few years to try to get to this point, it just makes it that much better. I’m trying to keep the ride going.”
The Blue Jays will certainly need him to if they hope to pull themselves back into the post-season conversation, and the same goes for closer Roberto Osuna, who erased a Michael Conforto flare single with a Kyle Seager double play to end a clean and overpowering seventh.
“I can’t describe this moment because it’s just a dream that came true,” said Osuna, beaming the whole time. “Playing on the same team with Robinson Cano, I remember him with the Yankees, I grew up watching him play. Molina is one of the best players that I’ve ever seen. Playing against and on the same team as them is everything for me.”
Osuna, at 22, was among the 33 players under 27 in the contest, and like the others, continues to perform in a manner that belies his age, with an understanding of his place in the game. Asked if he was tempted to bring his phone to the mound to get a picture like Cruz did, he replied: “Not yet. This is my first all-star game. Give me a couple more.”
Judge is a grizzled veteran when compared to Osuna or Cody Bellinger, who is all of 21, but it’s worth remembering that he’s a young 25 when compared to Trout, who at the same age is a six-time all-star but missed Miami recovering from a thumb injury, and Harper, who at 24 is a five-timer.
This spring, there were questions if he’d break camp with the Yankees after he struck out 42 times in 95 plate appearances with only 15 hits and four homers during a 27-game stint to close out the 2016 season.
Over the winter he went to work, focusing on keeping his barrel through the strike zone longer, a year after being more athletic in the batter’s box was his winter project. “I’ve been a work in progress for 25 years now, so every off-season I’ve got something I’m trying to work on,” he says.
“The past couple of years, the path of my barrel has been in and out of the zone,” he explained. “This off-season I worked on, basically, lengthening my swing, getting my bat in the zone early and keeping it in there for a long time. I feel like if I do that, my room for error is pretty large and the room for contact will increase, and that’s what has happened this year.”
Featuring a silly .329/.448/.691 batting line with 30 homers, 13 doubles and 61 walks, what’s happened this year and the raw tools behind that production left his fellow all-stars in awe. Smoak declined an invitation to participate in the home run derby because Judge’s display is “what I was expecting to happen.”
“He’s unbelievable,” Smoak added. “The guy flicks balls to right field further than I can pull them left-handed. It’s amazing.”
If anyone in baseball wasn’t on notice about him before the all-star break, well they certainly are now. Osuna has fared better than most against Judge, holding him hitless with four strikeouts in five at-bats so far and even isn’t taking any of the outs for granted. “I always pitch him really careful,” he said. “He’s one of the best hitters in baseball right now.”
That’s a good thing for a game that’s trying to find itself in this intriguing but uncertain three-true-outcome era. Think of himself as Babe Ruth? Being Aaron Judge will do just fine.