Aaron Judge has explained why he looked towards the New York Yankees dugout before hitting a home run against the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Yankees claimed a 7-4 win on Monday over the Blue Jays, with Judge hitting two home runs in the victory. One of his homers came at the top of the eighth inning, where the apparent controversy began.
When Judge went out to bat, with the score 6-0 in the Yankees favour, the outfielder appeared to glance towards his team's dugout several times just before Blue Jays pitcher Jay Jackson threw his pitch. The first pitch went for a strike, before the second went for a ball.
Each time, Judge appeared to glance towards the Yankees bench. The third pitch from Jackson went for a strike, which led to Yankees manager Aaron Boone being ejected by home plate umpire Clint Vondrak for arguing with the call.
Judge then glances again towards the Yankees dugout before Jackson’s fourth pitch. This time, Judge manages to hit a 462 ft home run to put the Yankees 7-0 in front in the game.
Dan Shulman and Blake Martinez, who were commentating for the Blue Jays’ broadcast on Sportsnet, remarked on Judge’s glances towards the Yankees dugout. Shulman spotted what Judge did and speculated the reasons behind it.
“What is that? Where is he looking?” said Shulman, while on commentary. “And he did it more than once.” Afterwards, the footage of Judge appearing to glance several times towards the dugout emerged on social media.
When asked for the reason behind it, Judge gave a simple explanation. "There was kind of a lot of chirping from our dugout, which I really didn't like in the situation," Judge told ESPN .
He added: "I feel like after the manager does his thing, it's like, 'Fellas, our pitcher has still got to go out there and make some pitches. We've got the lead, let's just go to work here’. I said a couple of things to some guys in the dugout and especially after the game. Hopefully it won't happen again."
Blue Jays manager John Schneider was also asked about the apparent glances from Judge towards the Yankees bench. While Schneider didn’t say much, he did question why the 31-year-old would do that. "It's kind of odd that a hitter would be looking in that direction,” said Schneider.
Yankees manager Boone, who was ejected before Judge hit his second home run of the game, and 10th of the season overall, also backed up what his star player said. "Judgie was kind of looking over like, 'I'm hitting here,'" said Boone.
The win for the Yankees leaves them fifth in the AL East and ahead of arch rivals the Boston Red Sox - who are bottom. Next for the Yankees is the second of the four-game series against the Blue Jays on Tuesday night.
