Yankees star slugger Aaron Judge has a number of accomplishments already under his belt through seven big league seasons, but one thing he hadn’t done was hit a walk-off home run.
Judge belted a three-run, walk-off home run to left field that gave the Yankees a 6-5 win over their AL East rival, the Toronto Blue Jays. He spoke to reporters after the game, and said he was simply happy to help the team get a win after they had been no-hit for five innings.
“It was good, I was just excited to get the team the win, help out a little bit,” Judge said. “Couldn’t really get anything go there early on, getting no-hit for a while. Came back, G [Giancarlo Stanton], I think had the biggest at-bat of the game, tying it up for us, kind of gave us a fighting chance. Guys in front of me did their job, just tried to keep the line moving.”
Judge’s homer was a no-doubter, as all of Yankee Stadium rose to their feet immediately once he made contact with the ball.
“It’s a weird feeling because you hear the crowd going crazy, you look at your bench and see your guys jumping over the railing, just kind of all getting excited,” Judge said. “It’s a special moment I get to share with them. I’m just trying to do my job up there. I know I had a couple guys behind me that are swinging the bat well, just trying to get a pitch I could drive.”
The 30-year-old said that the team was ignited together after Josh Donaldson got hit by a pitch, and added that they’re “always going to pick each other up.”
“Yeah they started off and got an early lead, but I think when Josh got hit, that kind of locked all of us in,” Judge said. “OK, it’s go time. Especially me, same thing, kind of got me going a little bit. This is a team, we’re fighting for each other, it doesn’t matter what the situation is, we’re always going to pick each other up. When something like that happens, we got to go out there and win this one.”