The most damaging walk for the Yankees is not the one that Gleyber Torres took to first the other day, assuming a homer
and winding up with a single and not long after that a message-sent benching by Aaron Boone.
It is all the intentional ones that Aaron Judge is accumulating …
Unless Austin Wells, Giancarlo Stanton and the rest of the batters behind Judge do something to make that strategy regrettable.
manager John Schneider was so sick of seeing Aaron Judge swing the bat that he did something no other manager had done in 52 years. With two outs and no
one on base in the second inning for the New York Yankees on Saturday, Schneider intentionally walked Judge.
“I honestly didn’t feel like seeing him swing. That was kind of it,” Schneider said, chuckling. “He’s in a different
category, I think, than anyone else in the league to where he can just flip the script of a game with one swing.”
Not even Barry Bonds, who finished his career with 688 intentional walks,
including 120 in 2004, was intentionally walked with two outs and no one on base within the first two innings of a game.
“That’s beyond the Bonds treatment,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Now we’ll call it the Judge treatment.”
