You Done Messed Up, A-A-Ron!

Aaron Judge, 2022 ALDS: 0-8, 7 K, 1 BB

Judge in nine postseason games since 2020: 5-for-37, .135

Judge vs Cleveland (postseason):

2017:  1-for-20, 16 K, .050
2020:  1-for- 9,  4 K, .111
2022:  0-for- 8,  7 K, .000
Total: 2-for-37, 27 K, .054

Players Who Led Their League In HR & Had A 4-K Game In That Year's Postseason

Aaron Judge - 4 times (3 times in 2017, once in 2022)
Every Other Player In MLB History - 0 times

Most Career Postseason Strikeouts Against One Opponent

33 - Duke Snider vs NYY       (137 PA)
27 - Aaron Judge vs CLE       ( 43 PA)
24 - Mickey Mantle vs BRK/LAD (115 PA)

Kristie Ackert, Daily News:

The time is now and Aaron Judge and the Yankees have to catch up with it. . . . 

[T]he Yankees' offense was [nearly] nonexistent Friday. The Bombers had just six hits and went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 baserunners. . . .

The scrappy Guardians, who the Yankees outscored by 24 runs in their regular season meetings, were able to break through. . . .

In the 10th, they took advantage of the Yankees' mistakes to score the two runs . . . Jose Ramirez doubled and took third on a Josh Donaldson throwing error. He scored on Oscar Gonzalez's shallow fly ball to right and Josh Naylor doubled in another run on a fly ball that got past Harrison Bader. The Yankees were not built to scrape together runs like the Guardians. . . . [W]hen the Yankees’ offense came up small Friday, [Judge] took the brunt of the blame. After striking out for the fourth time in his fourth at-bat of the day, Judge heard boos from some of the 47,535 at Yankees Stadium.

Mark W. Sanchez, Post:

Aaron Judge, two games after he finished a record, 62-home-run season, heard boos in The Bronx.

The Yankees superstar, who carried the club all season, struggled to begin the ALDS. In his first eight plate appearances against the Guardians, Judge went 0-for-7 with seven strikeouts and a walk.

After Judge's fourth strikeout of Game 2 on Friday afternoon, when he went down swinging against former Yankees prospect Trevor Stephan, he retreated to the dugout to a general murmur and a few scattered boos. At the time, the Yankees and Guardians were knotted at 2-2 in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Dan Martin, Post:

Since homering for a third straight playoff game in Game 2 of the 2018 ALDS, when the Yankees knocked off the Red Sox at Fenway Park and [Aaron] Judge walked by the Red Sox' clubhouse with a stereo blasting "New York, New York," he hasn't had much postseason success. . . .

[The Yankees] went on to lose that Boston series in 2018 and have beaten only Minnesota and Cleveland in the playoffs since, with a loss to Houston in the 2019 ALCS, Tampa Bay in the 2020 ALDS and Boston in last year's wild-card game.

In Tuesday's series-opening win at the Stadium against the Guardians, Judge walked, stole a base and scored, but he also went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts.

With that performance, he's now played 20 games since that victory in Boston and is hitting .192 (15-for-78) in 93 plate appearances.

He has just four extra-base hits (all homers) and an OPS of .651 to go along with only seven RBIs, 13 walks and 25 strikeouts. . . .

The upcoming trip to Cleveland might not do any favors to Judge, as he went 1-for-7 with three walks and a pair of strikeouts in three games there this season and his career OPS of .688 at Progressive Field is Judge's lowest at any ballpark where he's played more than six games.

Jon Heyman, Post:

Yankees fans booed certain AL MVP Aaron Judge during Game 2 of the ALDS on Friday at Yankee Stadium. Yes, that really did happen.

A couple of players termed booing [Judge] "crazy." I might upgrade it a notch or two, to borderline insane.

And poorly timed, too. Let's not forget Judge is about to be a free agent. It's time to be especially nice to him, folks.

I get it when Yankees fans boo a middling reliever who gives up the lead.

I get it when they boo Houston star Jose Altuve, or any of the Astros. . . .

And I certainly get it when they boo the Guardians' Myles Straw, who was quoted saying the Yankees have the "worst fan base" in the league. . . .

Sure, Judge hasn't been himself, at 0-for-7 with seven strikeouts when he was booed in the seventh inning of the Yankees' 4-2, 10-inning defeat . . .

Yankees fans . . . need to choose their targets better. . . .

[T]he Guardians finished on a 24-6 run and swept the just-as-pesky Rays in two games to get here. . . .

Guardians pitchers are great at limiting damage. If the game is close late, they have the edge in the bullpens, with the Yankees missing six relievers (five to injury and Aroldis Chapman to ignominy). . . .

[T]his is the time to suck up to Judge. For those who haven't heard, he has a very big decision coming up . . . [I]t's not a good idea to make this his lasting memory.

(We are not expecting this, but if the Guardians win the next two games in Cleveland, the game Friday may have been Judge's last at The Stadium.) . . .

Yankees fans booing Aaron Judge in 2022 is like Red Sox fans booing Carl Yastrzemski in the Impossible Dream season of 1967.