The Theories Behind Aaron Judge Being 'Lost' At Plate As Yankees Face World Series Must-Win
Jon Heyman
Yankees superstar Aaron Judge surely has heard it all by now. The game's greatest hitter by a mile is barely hitting the ball at all.
Is it the great October pitchers? Is it Judge doing something different, or wrong?
Is it the pitches or the pressure? The mechanics or the approach?
If I'm hearing about it, I can only imagine what he's dealing with. The theories are almost endless . . .
[Judge] entered Game 3 of the World Series hitting .150 in October with nearly half his at-bats resulting in strikeouts (19 of 40).
It's both his mechanics and his approach, according to one NL scout.
"The reason Judge is so streaky is in his mechanics and his approach: 1) he swings uphill, stuck back with his lower half … zero adjustability," the scout said. "Limited barrel accuracy with this swing.. . . When's the last time you saw Judge off balance and get a hit? He can't. His mechanics don't allow for adjustability and his approach is to swing as hard as he can no matter the pitch. There is just no battle right now."
That's one of the more insider explanations, but it is also quite insightful. There are many more thoughts.
"He's lost," says one longtime baseball expert. "He can't see anything down in the zone with spin." . . .
The pressure of living up to fabulous regular seasons can get strong for some, one NL scout said. "First time on this stage for some great players at times can get a little fast even for them." . . .
Others say it's the opposition, and in this case the Dodgers, known as an analytics team, had at least five advance scouts on the championship series. . . .
"Such a dangerous hitter when he can extend his arms," the AL scout said, "but his primary weakness has been there all year — feels to me that playoff teams are just typically better at preparing and executing for each team's primary weakness."
Aaron Judge 'A Brick Wall' To Narratives Around His Struggles As World Series Shifts To Bronx
Greg Joyce
[W]ith the Yankees . . . facing a 2-0 deficit in the World Series, with Judge's ill-timed slump at the heart of their struggles, an angsty Yankee Stadium could await in Game 3.
"We got the best fans in baseball, so they're definitely going to be loud, they're going to be rowdy, they're going to have our back all game," Judge said . . .
One way to ensure that will actually be the case throughout Monday night would be for Judge to deliver an early jolt after going a brutal 6-for-40 with 19 strikeouts through his first 11 games this October. . . .
But what happens if [he] strikes out in his first at-bat or two? Or he just comes up empty again with runners on base, especially if the Dodgers take an early lead?
It was only two years ago that Judge, 10 days removed from hitting his record-breaking 62nd home run, was booed in Game 2 of the ALDS amid a quiet start to his playoffs. . . .
Judge's teammates insist he is unaffected by the mounting noise, good or bad.
"The narrative is whatever is made of it, but he's a brick wall," said Anthony Rizzo . . . "He knows how to handle all this stuff." . . .
Judge has struck out three times in each of the first two games of the World Series, giving him 11 games with at least 3 strikeouts in his postseason career, the most in MLB history, per MLB Network. . . .
[T]he numbers are troubling. So far this postseason, Judge is just 3-for-20 with runners on base and 0-for-10 with six strikeouts with runners in scoring position.
Those struggles have been magnified in the first inning . . . With Gleyber Torres and Juan Soto regularly reaching base ahead of him in the opening frame this month, he has [gone] 0-for-10 with six strikeouts and a hit-by-pitch in 11 first innings, nine of which have come with runners on base. [During the season, Judge hit .359 in the first inning with a 1.307 OPS.] . . .
Judge has hurt himself by expanding the zone. His chase rate during a dominant regular season was a career-low 17.7 percent. In 11 playoff games this month, it is 29.7 percent.
Pitchers have attacked Judge with off-speed and breaking pitches, against which he is just 1-for-20 with 14 strikeouts this postseason. Judge has swung at 23 off-speed and breaking pitches out of the zone and whiffed at 21 of them.
Yankees Lineup Being Held Back By Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells' Brutal Slumps
Dan Martin
Aaron Judge isn't the only one weighing down the Yankee lineup lately. . . .
[Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells] are off to horrendous starts . . . against the Dodgers . . .
The two players [batted in Game 2] with the bases loaded and the Yankees trailing by two runs in the top of the ninth . . . It didn't go well.
Volpe whiffed on a 2-2 sweeper from right-hander Blake Treinen that ended up far out of the strike zone for the second out of the inning. . . .
Trevino was used as a pinch hitter versus the lefty [Alex Vesia], even though the veteran catcher has just one hit in the postseason. He lined out to center on the first pitch he saw to end the game. . . .
[Volpe] is hitless in eight at-bats against the Dodgers with four strikeouts. The only time Volpe has reached base in his past 11 plate appearances, in fact, was an intentional walk . . .
Wells' slump goes back to his final 14 games of the regular season, when the catcher went 3-for-45 with a dozen strikeouts. . . .
Overall this postseason, Volpe has a slugging percentage of .270, with Wells coming in at .171.
Yankees Turn Back To Jose Trevino In World Series Lineup Switch
Greg Joyce
The Yankees are trying to snap out of their 2-0 World Series deficit by making a change at catcher.
Jose Trevino will start Game 3 behind the plate for the scuffling Austin Wells.
It will only be Trevino's second start of the postseason, the first one coming in the ALCS when the Guardians started lefty Matthew Boyd.
Trevino has a weaker arm than Wells, potentially opening the door for the Dodgers to take advantage on the basepaths, but the left-handed hitting rookie had been close to a zero at the plate through 11 playoff games, batting 4-for-41 (.098) with a .330 OPS. . . .
Trevino . . . pinch-hit for Wells in the ninth inning Saturday against Dodgers left-hander Alex Vesia, flying out to center field to end the game with the bases loaded and the Yankees trailing, 4-2.
Carlos Rodon Suddenly Has Injury Issue That Could Impact Yankees' World Series Plans
Jon Heyman
Carlos Rodon was dealing with a finger blister, which affected his breaking pitches in Game 2, The Post confirmed.
Likely due to the blister issue, he became too reliant on his fastball, which eventually got hammered.
You have to wonder whether this could affect his Game 6 assignment, assuming Game 6 is necessary. . . .
This World Series features the two main players in Boston's long-regretted Mookie Betts trade: Betts, of course, who remains one of the five best players in the world, and Alex Verdugo, who entered Game 3 in a 1-for-17 slide.
Dodgers people never saw Verdugo as having star potential. They didn't see him as having enough power or the ability to play center field.
Two Old Favorites Return To Stade Fasciste* . . . It's Mystique and Aura!
Bronx Ready To Roar As World Series Finally Returns To Yankee Stadium
Mike Vaccaro (my emphasis)
It won't take long for everyone to reacclimate. Fifteen years may seem like an eternity when discussing Yankees appearances in the World Series, but when you have muscle memory this strong, it all comes back pretty quickly. The sights. The sounds — especially the sounds. The energy.
And, yes, the magic.
The Mets may have co-opted October's magic this time around, but they never put a down payment on it. Yankee Stadium has been the home office for October magic — for World Series magic — since a time when silent movies were still the most popular form of entertainment. . . .
The great majority of Yankees fans understand what a joy it is to have followed such a franchise, and while brimming with confidence is generally their default position, they also can recognize a seminal moment when it presents itself, as it has across so many World Series across so many Octobers across so many decades. That is Game 3. That is Monday night.
The mouth-breathers who gave the rest of Yankee Fandom a bad name Saturday, caught on film cheering Shohei Ohtani's injury at Billy's, and offering up a few vulgar single-finger salutes, they don't represent the bulk of Yankees fans. And those fans — the good ones, the loyal ones — surely were happy to hear Dave Roberts' words late Sunday afternoon, saying that Ohtani is likely to be good to go Monday night. . . .
Real Yankees fans, the ones who've been with them for parades and for predicaments, never shy away from facing teams at their best. They welcome it, in fact. . . .
The Yankees lost Game 1 from ahead and Game 2 from behind, but what they could really use is a crooked number, early as possible, especially on Monday. Give themselves a little room to breathe. Give the masses a little material to work with. The Dodgers are relentless, frustratingly so, but they're also human.
An early hole, and an earsplitting and sustained roar, would pave the clearest pathway toward shaving the Dodgers lead to 2-1 in this series. Let the Dodgers hear the rancor for a few hours, and then let them stew on it overnight. That's the immediate mission here. . . .
And they've come to the right place. . . . The Bronx . . . where the faithful have been waiting, and where they're ready. The countdown has started for the roll call, Fall Classic edition. Clear your throats. We're nearly there.
M-Vac is giving cheering lessons to the fans! Well, not all of them – he's addressing the "great majority" (the "bulk") – the "good", "loyal", "real", "faithful" and confident fans! (There's maybe only 5 or 6 of those, and I'm being generous.) He also acts as if this third YS is still the original YS – which was destroyed roughly five decades ago. Just blindly follow orders from the light bulbs in the scoreboard and GET LOUD – that (apparently) will cause runs for the home team and instill fear and worry in the opposition (after they "stew on it" during a long sleepless night).
Vaccaro can be as snarky and withering as any other Post sportswriter, so I look forward to the next few days, once he ditches the naive-cheerleader tone and returns to dispensing the schadenfreude by shitting on the MFY.
*: Type "Stade Fasciste" into Google and the Joy of Sox's glossary is the top listing (in English). Wooo.
