Teams should probably stop intentionally walking Juan Soto ahead of Aaron Judge.
The last time it happened, an angry Judge hit the 300th homer of his career.
On Tuesday night, he broke out of his October slump.
Amid Judge’s postseason struggles, the Guardians intentionally walked Soto with runners on second and third and one out in the second inning of the Yankees’ 6-3, Game 2 ALCS victory in The Bronx.
Aaron Judge hits a sacrifice fly of Cade Smith to give the Yankees an early 3-0 lead over the Guardians in Game 2 of the ALCS. APJudge came through in that spot — sort of.
He hit a sacrifice fly to score the Yankees’ third run. In the seventh, he blasted a two-run homer to center field, his first roundtripper of the postseason.
This wasn’t the first time an opposing manager has preferred to walk Soto to face Judge.
On Aug. 14, the White Sox did the same thing, and Judge made them pay with a 3-run homer, the 300th of his career, in a 10-2 victory.
“I was mad about the intentional walk, so that kind of fueled it,” Judge said at the time. “Usually 3-0, I’ll take a pitch, see a pitch, kind of pass it on to the next guy. But in that situation, if they don’t want to pitch to you, you got to come through.”
White Sox interim manager Grady Sizemore said a sizzling Soto led him to the surprising decision.
“Soto already had four homers in that series already,” the manager said. “He was crushing us and not that I want to walk anyone to get to Judge but I had an open base and the game was getting away from us, so I just couldn’t let Soto hit five home runs against us in that situation,”
Judge had struggled in October, entering the game Tuesday night with just two hits in 15 at-bats and six strikeouts.
Juan Soto reacts after getting intentionally walked in the second inning which set up a bases loaded, one-out situation for Aaron Judge, who hit a sacrifice fly to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead in Game 2 of the ALCS. Getty ImagesHe came up in the first inning of Game 2 with a chance to do major damage, with runners on the corners and nobody out. Judge popped up.
Fortunately for him, Guardians shortstop Brayan Rocchio dropped the ball, enabling Gleyber Torres to score the first run of the night.
But later in the game, Judge came through, sending a two-run homer into orbit to put away the game and help give the Yankees a comfortable 2-0 series lead.
