A New Prism To Judge Judge
PLUS: LIGHTNING POSES HAZARDS FOR FANS, PLAYERS
Pregame Pepper
If San Diego pitcher Nick Pivetta doesn’t return by Aug. 22 from his right elbow flexor strain, the team can void the last two years of his four-year, $55 million contract (thus saving $32 million) . . .
Even with Yu Darvish (elbow) and Joe Musgrove recuperating from Tommy John elbow surgery, San Diego is trying to make the playoffs for the third straight year, which it has never done before . . .
Don’t tell Munetaka Murakami but no White Sox player has won a home run crown since Dick Allen in 1972 . . .
The Giants regret acquiring Rafael Devers, who cost them $255 million, the amount left in his 10-year, $313.5 million Boston deal when he was traded last June . . .
The Phils are paying $34.2 million to players no longer on their varsity, including Nick Castellanos and Taijuan Walker . . .
The Braves used 19 starting pitchers, most in the majors, last season . . .
Houston had 16 players on the IL earlier this month . . .
Brandon Nimmo’s no-trade cause with the Mets gave him a comfort zone that allowed him to buy a large home in Port St. Lucie, where the team trains – but get traded to Texas anyway . . .
Seventy-six players will earn more than $20 million this season, with the Dodgers and Yankees having six men each at that level and the Mets, Giants, and Padres having five . . .
No player on the Nationals even earns $10 million.
Leading Off
Fun With Numbers... Aaron Judge
By Paul Semendinger
We all know how great Aaron Judge is. His statistics, his numbers, demonstrate that loudly:
Judge has won three Most Valuable Player Awards
He is a seven-time All-Star
He has won five Silver Sluggers
Judge holds the American League record for home runs in one season with 62.
He has hit 50 or more home runs in a season four times.
In the great and vast history of the Yankees, Aaron Judge is already sixth all-time in WAR (65.0)
I could, of course, go on and on...
But, for fun, I decided to take a deep dive into some other random statistics about Aaron Judge by carefully examining his page on Baseball Reference.
What follows are some fun facts regarding Aaron Judge’s career. (Note: all the statistics were compiled on May 11 and May 12.)
Aaron Judge’s best month is May. He’s a .329 hitter in May. Amazingly, May is the only month in which Judge has a .300 or better batting average.
Aaron Judge bats .275 in August, his worst month batting-average-wise.
The Yankees win when Judge hits. In games the Yankees win, Judge is batting .335.
The Yankees don’t win when Judge doesn’t hit. In Yankees loses, Judge is batting .230.
Aaron Judge has had 18 at bats as a pinch-hitter but is just 1-for-18 (.056) with 11 strikeouts.
Judge has a grand total of nine games played as the team’s #4 (clean-up) hitter. That’s the fewest amount of games he has appeared in any batting order spot.
The most popular spot for Judge is second. He has batted second in 634 games (53.4% of the games he has played).
If a pitcher can get to two strikes against Aaron Judge, that pitcher most often owns him. With two strikes, Judge’s batting average is .191.
That being said, a pitcher would be wise to not throw too good of a pitch to Aaron Judge as he begins an at-bat. Just hits .443 on the first pitch of an at-bat.
Even worse for a pitcher, on 1-0 counts, Judge bats .456.
A pitcher never wants to get behind Judge 2-0. In those counts, Aaron Judge is batting .489.
Overall, Aaron Judge mashes when he is ahead in the count. He hits .347 in that situation. If the pitcher gets ahead, Judge bats just .211.
Judge’s best inning is the sixth. He is batting .319 in the 6th inning.
His worst inning is the ninth. He is batting .259 in the 9th inning.
Aaron Judge bats .239 in extra innings.
One would probably think that Aaron Judge feats on fastballs, but he does not. Against power pitchers, Judge is hitting .238.
He hits .318 against finesse pitchers.
Judge mashes against the Chicago White Sox. His batting average is .406.
Judge is batting just .198 against the Houston Astros.
He hits his most home runs against the Baltimore Orioles. The Birds have seen Judge take a trip around the bases 53 times.
Judge has hit only one home run against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Outside of Yankee Stadium, Judge has gone yard the most at Camden Yards.
Aaron Judge had one home run as a visiting ballplayer in Tampa at George M. Steinbrenner Field.
Judge has batted 115 times with the bases loaded. He has nine grand slams and is batting .333 in those situations with 104 runs batted in.
For his career, the player most similar to Aaron Judge is Ralph Kiner.
The most similar player through his age-33 season is Mark McGwire.
Of all of the most similar players to Aaron Judge, the only Hall of Famers to date are Ralph Kiner and Willie McCovey.
Paul Semendinger’s newest books West Point at Gettysburg and The Greatest New York Yankees By Uniform Number are highly acclaimed. Paul runs the Yankees site Start Spreading the News.
Cleaning Up
Lightning Is Beautiful But Deadly — Even at a Game
By Dan Schlossberg
The recent passing of Bobby Cox reminded me that he kept a little “radar room” adjacent to his manager’s office at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium and Turner Field.
As manager of a team based in a warm, muggy climate conducive to sudden summer thunderstorms, Bobby developed an interest in weather that was almost an obsession.
He wanted to know if a game could be postponed or delayed as it might effect his decisions not only on whom to pitch but also what position players to use.
If Bobby thought he could forge a five-inning victory, with weather wiping out the remaining four innings, he would go for it.
Lightning is definitely a factor in baseball games — especially at night.
Something called the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network examined 9,717 games between 2016 and 2019 and found that 717 of them had lightning within 12.8 km — with 175,000 in-cloud and cloud-to-ground strikes during those games.
In fact, the service says one of every 14 major-league games has lightning occurring within an unsafe distance.
When the survey was taken, seven ballparks had fixed or retractable roofs. But 23 were topless.
During a game in Washington six years ago, cloud-to-ground strokes were as close as two km from Nationals Park and were captured by the television broadcast.
That is too close for comfort.
Just last week, on May 4, 2026, a lightning strike occurred in the seventh inning of a game between the Tigers and Red Sox in Detroit. The plate umpire wisely delayed the game for 28 minutes.
More than 100 years have passed since a pitcher was actually knocked unconscious by a lightning bolt while he was on the mound.
The victim, Ray Caldwell of the Cleveland Indians, was hit with two outs in the ninth inning of a game against the Philadelphia Athletics. He recovered from the strike, got up and finished the Aug. 24, 1919 game.
On Aug. 6, 2025, a lightning strike scattered the players during a game in Arlington, TX. And lightning struck an iron rail near the press box, traveled down to the field and out to the mound in a terrifying incident on April 4, 2020.
Lightning is not to be laughed at. It kills 24,000 and injures 10 times as many every year. Amateurs are hardly immune from those statistics, especially during the month of August.
Fortunately for the big-leaguers, the two Florida parks where lightning is most frequent are both covered by domes. But last year the Tampa Bay Rays played home games at nearby George M. Steinbrenner Field, a minor-league facility on loan from the New York Yankees after Hurricane Milton imploded the roof of Tropicana Field.
The Trop is back but lightning is still a problem in the so-called Sunshine State.
In the study by the lightning institute, only Dodger Stadium, Petco Park, and the Oakland Coliseum were lightning-free.
The problem is so serious that some players are actively involved in weather safety and preparedness. One former star who was part of a National Weather Service safety campaign was Torii Hunter of the Minnesota Twins.
HtP weekend editor Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ admits to a lightning phobia. He still covers the game for Lucas Communications, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Sports Collectors Digest, and Memories & Dreams. Dan’s email is ballauthor@gmail.com.
Extra Innings
“This shows we have a certain amount of confidence in the season if we’re going to put this many games on television. After all, if the games were only on radio, no one would know how bad we are.”
– Ted Turner after announcing the Braves would televise 24 home games in 1978
When Turner bought the Braves for $10 million in 1976, he agreed to pay $1 million up front and the rest, with interest, over the next nine years . . .
Braves pitchers Chris Sale, Spencer Strider, Spencer Schwellenbach, Grant Holmes, and AJ Smith-Shawver spent a combined 587 days on the IL during the 2025 season, with no pitcher making more than 30 starts or winning more than eight games . . .
The banged-up Braves used 19 different starters, most in the majors, last year . . .
Willie Mays ranks 11th in career RBIs but never led his league . . .
Cincinnati has reached the post-season in consecutive years just once since winning back-to-back world championships in 1975-76 . . .
The unexpected strong start of the St. Louis Cardinals can be credited to the performances of rookie JJ Wetherholt and former top prospect Jordan Walker.
Know Your Editors
Here’s the Pitch is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles the Monday issue with Dan Freedman [dfreedman@lionsgate.com] editing Tuesday and Jeff Kallman [easyace1955@outlook.com] at the helm Wednesday and Thursday. Original editor Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com], does the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Former editor Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] is now co-director [with Benjamin Chase and Jonathan Becker] of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America, which publishes this newsletter and the annual ACTA book of the same name. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HtP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.