Aaron Judge is not alone in his massive Yankees World Series failure
Aaron Judge will have to endure his mounting October legacy of decreasing impact.Fifty-six games has a large meaning in Yankees and baseball history around Joe DiMaggio.But what it represented going into Tuesday night’s World Series Game 4 was the number of games Judge has now played in the postseason.
Judge’s most ardent clubhouse defenders invoke N and N — narrative and noise — to try to suggest it is outside negativity purveyors who are creating his soiled postseason image.The Yankees, though, can’t have it both ways, talking up how Giancarlo Stanton elevates to magic at this time of year without acknowledging Judge’s plummet to tragic postseason results.After all, this is no longer some insignificant sample size.
The 56 postseason games tied Hideki Matsui for 11th most in Yankee history.Matsui, though, was among the best October players in franchise history.Among the 51 Yankees with at least 100 postseason plate appearances, his .312 average was seventh best while Judge’s .196 was seventh worst.
Matsui won the World Series MVP the last time the Yankees were in the World Series, in 2009.Judge was on the way to being the goat of this Fall Classic, toting a 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts as the Dodgers took a three-games-to-nothing lead.The Yankees had played 12 games this postseason, all decided by three runs or fewer.
They survived with a singular big moment by Judge in the first two rounds — a two-run, eighth-inning, game-tying homer off Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase in ALCS Game 3.Incidentally, that was one of the two games the Yankees lost in the playoffs.The Yankees could live without much from Judge and still prevail over the little brothers of the AL Central.
Not against the Dodgers.If Judge were hitting, the Yankees could — and possibly would — have won each of the first three games rather than fall into their near-impossible hole.He is the biggest star on the team.
The highest paid in franchise history.Thus, he has the greates...