The New York Yankees desperately needed a win against the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday, with the hope that the Yankees were finally going to win a game against one of the better teams in Major League Baseball.
The Rays have been the best team in the American League by a somewhat wide margin this year, sitting at 34-16 and 4 1/2 games ahead of the Yankees in the American League East standings.
The Yankees' offense has just been boring for most of the past few weeks, and as a result, they just haven't played the type of baseball that we're used to seeing. That includes slugger Aaron Judge, who definitely hasn't been the same type of hitter that we're used to seeing from him.
That's been a problem throughout this rough stretch, but Judge reversed that script a bit on Sunday, hitting a walk-off two-run home run on a day that was filled with cold and rain. Instead of showing frustration about how he's played throughout the year, Judge had a lot of good to say, commenting in ways that we expect from the Yankees captain.
"There's no frustration, I got a job to do," Judge said. "Obviously I want to get the job done and help the team win and we weren't winning, so I was mad about that. But no homers, RBIs, you can find other ways to help your team win. So that's what I was trying to do."
To hear that there's no frustration from Judge is a very good sign, as it's easy for guys to get in their heads a bit and start worrying more than they have to. Instead of that being the case, the longtime veteran knows what he has to do day in and day out to continue being one of the best players in the world.
However, the latest stats go to show how much he was struggling to meet his standards, as he ended the longest stretch of games without an RBI throughout his career with that swing.
“Judge ended a career-high, 11-game slump without an RBI, hitting a two-run homer off Kevin Kelly in the ninth inning that lifted the New York Yankees over the Tampa Bay Rays 2-0 Sunday for their first win in five games this year against their American League East rival,” ESPN wrote.
