When the Yankees negotiated with Aaron Judge when he was in the free agent market, they didn’t necessarily have the best offer monetaryally (although $360 million over nine years is still solid), but they had one thing other teams didn’t have: the ability to make him the captain of MLB’s most historic team.
In the end, Judge (who values his heritage very much) let himself be tempted by, among other things, this. The Yankees have kept their part of the pact, they who named him captain following the official announcement of his signing.
And yesterday, while serving as the designated hitter for the Yankees against the Pirates, the Judge hit his first home run as Yankees captain. Admittedly, he did it in an exhibition game context, but it remains his first home run as the team’s official captain.
In doing so, he put an exclamation mark on a big Yankees inning, while in second, the Bombardiers scored no less than six runs. Hits from Jose Trevino (one RBI) and DJ LeMahieu (two RBIs) also contributed to the effort.
Aaron Hicks and Willie Calhoun (who is having a great camp) also did well offensively in a landslide 9-2 Yankees victory. That said, defensively, it was a bit trickier for Hicks, who made a mistake on a routine play down the left.
The good news is that in the next few days, there will be reinforcements on the left. The Yankees plan to use Judge in that position from time to time this season, and the plan is to give him his first audition in left field on Wednesday.
He will also be there on Thursday, by the way.
In short, we will see in the next few days if Judge excels as much on the left as he excels at bat (well, maybe not…), but clearly, it will be interesting to see how he does well. If he doesn’t hurt too much, it will allow the Yankees to use Giancarlo Stanton on the right and optimize the batting lineup.
- Bad news for the Yankees, though: Tommy Kahnle has a right bicep injury and will be out for a few days. He believes he needs a month and Aaron Boone believes he has a chance to be ready in time for the start of the season.
- Jasson Dominguez also continues to impress.
- It would be a blow for the Mets.
