Yankees slugger Aaron Judge has put together one of the most impressive offensive performances of all time. But as we’ve seen over these last couple of weeks, he’s also human.
Through the first two weeks of September, nobody could retire the outfielder. Once he hit his 60th home run of the season, though, things started to slow down. Opposing pitchers got even more careful with him, his walk rate skyrocketed, and he began getting fewer and fewer pitches to actually do damage with.
That hasn’t stopped him from tying Roger Maris with 61 home runs, but it’s been a lot harder for him to get over the hump.