Aaron Judge’s dominant start to the season continued Sunday afternoon.
The New York Yankees star pushed his batting average above .400 again while leading the team to a 12-2 win over the Athletics in Sacramento. Judge had four hits, which matched his career-high — though that’s something he’s done 13 times in his career now. He also raised his batting average to .409 on the season. That’s the highest in the league by far, well above teammate Paul Goldschmidt’s second-best .349.
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Judge now has the fourth-best batting average with at least 14 home runs through the first 40 games of the season in MLB history. Only Manny Ramirez, Jimmie Foxx and Mickey Mantle are ahead of him on that list.
Judge’s first hit of the afternoon came in the second, when he hit a two-RBI single to push the Yankees to a 5-0 lead.
He hit a double in the fourth and then a single in the fifth, which eventually resulted in Goldschmidt driving him in to extend the Yankees’ lead to 10. His fourth and final hit of the game came in the seventh, when he hit an easy single to left. It was his seventh game of the season with at least three hits.
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By that point, the Yankees simply cruised to the double-digit win, which marked their fourth win in their last five games. They now sit at 23-17 on the season. The Yankees will wrap up their West Coast road trip with a three-game series against the Seattle Mariners starting on Monday.
Along with his batting average, Judge also has 39 RBI, 63 hits and 14 home runs — all of which lead the league. Even though the season is about six weeks old, Judge appears to be a lock to win the AL MVP award already. He was listed at -1100 to win the award on BetMGM on Friday, which gives him about a 92% chance of winning.
Judge’s batting average almost certainly isn’t going to hold. Only eight players have finished a season above .400, most recently ed Williams in 1941. Tony Gwynn came the closest since in 1994, but he fell three hits shy of hitting the mark.
Regardless, what Judge is doing so far is nothing short of historic. Whether he can sustain this level over the next several months and turn it into another deep postseason run for the Yankees, though, remains to be seen.
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