Phil Nevin hated doing it. In a near 20-minute phone conversation, the Angels manager mentioned that Aaron Judge was “like a son to him” and that he “loved” Judge several times, back to their time together when Nevin was the Yankees’ third-base coach.

Still, when Nevin ordered Judge to be intentionally walked twice in an Aug. 29 game in Anaheim, his baseball soul was sated for he was honoring its most vital concept — to try to win the game. But Nevin said he met with Judge after two of the three games because “the relationship is real.” Thus, part of him hated walking Judge.

Because, Nevin said, he would “feel bad” if his decision or someone reading his words in this column motivated more managers to walk him and threatened Judge’s chances to get to 61 or 62 homers or wherever exactly the slugger could go this year.

To me, it is actually stunning how much Judge has been pitched to this year. Even if the Yankees were hitting well around him, you still wouldn’t want this version of Judge to beat you. And often this year, those surrounding Judge have had bigger names than games. Teams brag about the resource of so many more coaches now than ever before and so much more video advanced scouting than ever before. But what are they doing? What are they watching? What are they advising?

For somehow in the 62 games before facing Nevin’s Angels, Judge was intentionally walked just three times. Nevin, though, did initiate a trend. Judge has been intentionally walked eight times in his last 18 games — nearly half of his MLB lead-tying (with Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez) 17 intentional passes.

Everything to know about Aaron Judge and his chase for the home run record:

Judge’s first crack at 60 homers comes Tuesday at home against the Pirates, who have issued the second-most intentional walks this season at 23 (they’ve also hit the second-most batters as you think about combining fear with lost opportunity for Judge).

Pittsburgh manager Derek Shelton said Sunday that he had yet to formulate a plan for how to approach Judge during the two-game series in The Bronx. But Shelton said he has been influenced by how Buck Showalter managed the out-of-contention 2011 Orioles down the stretch against the Red Sox, winning four of six games in the final 10 days. Shelton was the hitting coach for the Rays then and when Baltimore beat Boston on the final day of the season it allowed Tampa Bay to complete its rally into the playoffs.

“Buck played those games recognizing there was a playoff race going on and it always resonated with me,” Shelton said. “When you have a team in playoff contention, you not only have to respect that, but the other teams in playoff competition with them. That’s something we will definitely do. So depending on what the situation is, we will treat [Judge] like who he is, which is with the respect of one of the best players in the game.”

That suggests that the Pirates will handle Judge like plutonium and stay away unless forced otherwise. And, in a way, that has made Judge’s late-season brilliance all the more impressive. In that 18-game period with the eight intentional walks, there are 10 other walks (some unintentionally intentional). Judge sees only a handful of hittable pitches in any game. Yet, he is 31-for-64 (.484) with 10 homers in that span.

In that way, he is reminiscent of Barry Bonds. Everything written on Bonds must recognize the taint to his late-career homer achievements, Still, within that, he was walked or worked around like nobody in MLB history, yet still had the concentration to be ready for the rare hittable pitch. Bonds was intentionally walked 35 times in 2001 when he hit a record 73 homers. The advance scouting/coaching left something to be desired even then because the message went out and he was intentionally walked 68, 61 and 120 times in the next three years (the three highest totals ever).

This is why a call was made to Nevin. He coached Judge from 2018-21 and managed against him this season after replacing Joe Maddon. But Nevin also was a Padres All-Star in 2001 and watched Bonds mash 11 homers against his team (the most vs. any opponent that year) despite being walked 17 times.

Nevin said this is the most, since Bonds, he has seen a batter ready to hit when teams are avoiding him. Nevin cited the at-bat after he had ordered Judge walked in the third and fifth innings on Aug. 29. In the eighth inning, Ryan Tepera threw Judge a 1-1 curveball — a pitch the reliever uses less than 2 percent of the time.

“I don’t think he had thrown that pitch for a month and a half,” Nevin said. “There is no way Judge goes up looking for that pitch and he just homered to center. That just tells me he is seeing pitches like he has never seen them before. … In our meetings before the series, we decided we were not going to let Aaron Judge beat us.

“If there was a one-run game and Judge was leading off, I 100 percent would have considered walking him and that is Barry Bonds treatment. There was a first-and-second situation (in the fourth inning Aug. 30) and I even thought of walking him then because in theory there is an open base. I didn’t and he hit a three-run homer.

“I certainly have not seen anything like this since Barry.”