Aaron Judge sends clear message after Yankees' disastrous series meltdown vs. Red Sox

Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees hold a comfortable 3.5-game lead to the top of the American League East standings. However, the Bronx Bombers imploded against storied rivals, the Boston Red Sox, over the weekend.

While Yankees captain Aaron Judge helped the Yankees take the series opener into extra innings with his 26th home run of the season, the two-time AL MVP failed to make an impact in the series after that.

Following a 2-0 shoutout loss on Sunday, that completed a sweep of the Yankees by the hosts at Fenway Park, Judge said:

"We just couldn't really string those couple at-bats together and kind of drive some runs across. I feel like they scored first, every game, and kind of put us in a hole and I just wasn't able to dig out of it. Next time I gotta pull a little bit more pressure on them and get that lead to start."

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Aaron Judge lamented his plate discipline in the three-game series and said he should have taken swings off strikes instead of straying off the strike zone.

"You’ve got to swing at strikes,’’ Judge said. “It usually helps any hitter when you swing at strikes. Definitely some pitches off the edge or off the edge in, you know, taking some hacks just trying to make something happen.”

Judge's season average, which has hovered around the .400 mark for a while, dropped to .378 after the series sweep on Sunday.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone backs Aaron Judge despite struggling against Red Sox

The Yankees lost five of their six games against the Red Sox this month and manager Aaron Boone is not blaming captain Aaron Judge for their offensive struggles against the AL East rivals.

“They pitched him tough,"Boone said. “He had a massive hit to force extra innings the first night. That’s baseball. It’s why guys don’t hit .450 with 900 homers. You’re gonna have a weekend where they execute and they get you. … Hitting is hard. It’s hard to be perfect.”

Aaron Judge said he is ready to look past the series defeat, learning from the disappointing result as the Yankees prepare to host the Los Angeles Angels for a four-game series.

About the author

Chaitanya Prakash is an editor who covers US Sports at Sportskeeda. His first brush with sportswriting was in 2012 when the greatest football manager of all time, Sir Alex Ferguson, bid farewell to the beautiful game.

Although having started out professionally as a cricket writer in 2022, Chaitanya's curiosity and indiscriminate interest in all sports in general eventually introduced him to America's favorite pastime.

While Chaitanya's favorite player from the current crop is the dynamic Venezuelan Ronald Acuna Jr., his all-time favorite, however, is Pedro Martinez, for his self-belief and consistency. He also rates Jose Bautista's iconic bat flip in 2015 as his favorite moment in baseball history.

Chaitanya specializes in reporting on technical aspects of the game or analyzing patterns behind specific plays. He also likes pondering over players' self-assessments following the conclusion of a game as it helps him get an idea of how they think about the sport in general.

When not cheering for his favorites across sports, Chaitanya likes being transported to the past through a good war documentary or a historical documentary in general.

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Edited by Chaitanya Prakash