Yankees star Aaron Judge recently showed off his class in a short but funny exchange with Seattle Mariners' Teoscar Hernandez.
New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge can do it all. He hit two homers in Monday's win over the Seattle Mariners and also robbed one on defense.
The Mariners couldn't believe it, and much of Twitter couldn't, either.
In the 10-4 win, the Yankees were already up five runs in the eighth inning. Mariners' Teoscar Hernandez stepped up to the plate and slammed a deep fly ball to right field, one that was looking more and more like a homer until… Judge leapt up against the wall and cradled the ball in his outstretched glove.
According to Statcast, Hernandez's home run would have been good in 12 ballparks.
But Judge, who's much more well-known for what he does on the offensive side of the ball than the defensive side, just had to rob Hernandez in one of Judge's best games of his career.
After the game, Hernandez only had one word for Judge: Why.
Judge responded saying that Hernandez had hit plenty of homers over his head and wants to have this one:
Aaron Judge's and Teoscar Hernandez's exchange will make you love baseball
Class respects class.
For Judge, he's looking to improve his sluggish April form (sluggish by Judge's standards) and now has an AL-leading 17 homers and 38 RBI. He's batting .302 and has an OPS of 1.087; note that Judge also missed a chunk of games in the regular season due to a hip injury, and he has since swiftly made up for it with 11 home runs in the last 15 games.
Hernandez is the one who needed that homer more, as the Mariners outfielder is only batting .233 during a crucial contract year in Seattle.
It's easy to understand Hernandez's combination of awe and annoyance upon seeing Judge leap up and perfectly time his catch to rob the Mariners of that nearly-certain homer, but Judge's teammates and coaches know he's more than capable of making those kinds of plays.
According to STATS, Judge is the first player to hit multiple homers and rob a homer in the same game since he did it against the Royals last summer.
And he's humble about it. Just give him all the awards already.
