Aaron Judge has tormented the Red Sox through the first two games of the ALDS — and did his best to torment them again on his way out of Fenway Park on Saturday night.
After Judge homered in the first inning of the Yankees’ Game 2 victory over the Red Sox, which evened the series, video emerged late Saturday night of Judge walking by the Boston clubhouse following the win on his way to the team bus, with a boom box blaring Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.”
Whether the right fielder was trolling his rivals is known — so far — only to him, but no one seemed to have a problem with it at Yankee Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Asked for his reaction, Boston manager Alex Cora didn’t seem bothered.
“I don’t know, you’ve got to ask [Judge] if it was something for us, but I doubt it,” Cora said. “He’s a guy that when he hits the ball out of the ballpark, he sits down and runs. That’s probably just something they do when they win. … Probably they did it somewhere else, too.”
.@TheJudge44 blasted a certain song as he left Fenway Park tonight. 👀#StartSpreadingTheNewspic.twitter.com/Ams3wQBW6n
— MLB (@MLB) October 7, 2018
If he did, no one ever caught it on their phone and put it on Twitter.
The only two Red Sox players to speak to the media Sunday, shortstop Xander Bogaerts and right-hander Matt Barnes, said they were unaware of what Judge did. Cora said injured second baseman Dustin Pedroia told him about it.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone grinned when the video was brought up to him Sunday.
“It’s a good song,” Boone said of the Sinatra song that is played in some form after every Yankees game in The Bronx. “And Aaron [Judge], he’s one of our resident DJs, so he’s got a pretty extensive playlist. I guess that’s the one that was going. We like to hear that song sometimes when we win a big game.”
Luis Severino insisted he didn’t know what Judge had done, claiming he was waiting for Gary Sanchez in the visitors’ clubhouse when Judge left.
Didi Gregorius said: “I don’t know what message [it sends], but … we just go out there and play the game. The rivalry is always there, so it’s always good to have a little bit of fun with it, I guess.”
Boone agreed it wasn’t an issue.
“I saw it,” Boone said. “I think it’s fun. It’s something to talk about. But I think it’s just good-natured. … I think both teams are really good, have a lot of respect for each other, and I’ll just kind of leave it at that.”
Whether the Red Sox use it as motivation remains to be seen, but they have bigger concerns when it comes to Judge.
The right fielder, showing no ill effects from the chip fracture in his right wrist that cost him nearly two months and seemingly had sapped his power when he returned to the Yankees last month, is 5-for-9 with three runs scored and homers in both games of the series. He’s gone deep in three straight games overall.
Despite Judge’s recent dominance, Cora was wary of pitching around him, which might give someone else a chance to hurt his team.
“You’ve got to be careful, too,” Cora said. “You create traffic [for] those guys behind him and you’re going to pay the price. We just have to make better pitches.”
If they don’t, the Yankees will be celebrating to “New York, New York” again Monday in The Bronx.
