Aaron Judge finally broke out of his playoff slump with a home run during Game 2 of the American League Championship Series, but he had some gripes with one of his New York Yankees teammates for what happened while the ball was in the air.
Judge blasted a two-run home run in the seventh inning of Game 2 at Yankee Stadium, hitting it out to center on a cold and windy night. Because it was not immediately clear that the ball was going out, Gleyber Torres took a very conservative baserunning approach before the ball landed, going all the way first to tag up before the ball cleared the center field fence.
Judge had some fun with that, jokingly calling out Torres for not respecting his power enough.
“He did that this year earlier too when I hit, so I was pretty pissed then. I was pretty pissed again!” Judge said, via Randy Miller of NJ Advance Media.
To be clear, Judge knew Torres was doing the right thing, and pointed out that first base coach Travis Chapman was telling the second baseman to go back and tag. Still, Anthony Rizzo admitted Torres took some grief in the dugout over the move.
“I’m a little disappointed in Gleyber for not knowing Judge’s pop there,” Rizzo joked. “We were ribbing him a lot about that. It’s a big swing for Judgey.”
Torres made a baserunning gaffe in a September game that had Judge publicly calling him out for real. Plus, they made a few big gaffes on the bases even in their Game 2 win. Nobody is actually going to fault Torres for doing the right thing and playing it safe.
