Aaron Judge had some explaining to do, and he had to do it quickly after social media went off about his behavior during a game.
On Monday night’s telecast of the Toronto Blue Jays’ loss to their division opponent, the New York Yankees, an odd incident occurred.
During Judge’s at-bat, play-by-play announcer Dan Shulman and his color commentator colleague, Buck Martinez, saw something peculiar in their eyes. He appeared to be looking toward his dugout while waiting for the pitch.
Their suspicions were confirmed by a slow-motion film of his eyes.
“Alright Buck, so you and I looked at each other at the same moment right when we saw this three pitches ago. What is that?” Shulman asked.
“Where’s he looking?” Martinez chimed in. “Really, really unusual.”
Soon after that moment, Judge hit a pitch to deep center field. The ball traveled an estimated 462 feet to put the Yankees up 7-0. They would eventually win 7-4 to open the series.
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When asked about the circumstances after the game, Judge referred to his manager, Aaron Boone, being thrown earlier in the at-bat when a slider that was low in the zone was given a strike by home plate umpire Clint Vondrak. Boone was sent out for disputing balls and strikes.
“A lot of chirping from our dugout, which I really didn’t like in the situation where it’s a 6-0 game and I know Boonie got tossed,” he told reporters. “I was trying to save Boonie by calling timeout like, ‘Hey, hold up here. Let me work here.’ I was kinda trying to see who was chirping in the dugout. 6-0, Boonie got tossed, so let’s go to work now.”
He added that teammates didn’t stop talking to Vondrak after their manager was ejected, which led to him glancing once more.
“I’m kinda looking like, ‘Who’s still talking here?’ It’s 6-0 and our manager got tossed. He did his job, so let’s go back to playing ball.”
Judge ended by saying that it “hopefully won’t happen again.”
Since returning from the injured list, Judge is 8-for-25 with four homers and 10 RBI over seven games.
The Yankees are 24-19, but everybody is playing so well in the AL East that it only has them in fourth place.
