Fun With Numbers... Aaron Judge

By Paul Semendinger

May 2026

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NOTE - The following was originally published (on May 15, 2026) in the IBWAA's newsletter, Here's the Pitch.

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We all know how great Aaron Judge is. His statistics, his numbers, demonstrate that loudly:

• Judge has won three Most Valuable Player Awards

• He is a seven-time All-Star

• He has won five Silver Sluggers

• Judge holds the American League record for home runs in one season with 62.

• He has hit 50 or more home runs in a season four times.

• In the great and vast history of the Yankees, Aaron Judge is already sixth all-time in WAR (65.0)

  
  

I could, of course, go on and on...

But, for fun, I decided to take a deep dive into some other random statistics about Aaron Judge by carefully examining his page on Baseball Reference.

What follows are some fun facts regarding Aaron Judge’s career. (Note: all the statistics were compiled on May 11 and May 12.)

• Aaron Judge’s best month is May. He’s a .329 hitter in May. Amazingly, May is the only month in which Judge has a .300 or better batting average.

• Aaron Judge bats .275 in August, his worst month batting-average-wise.

• The Yankees win when Judge hits. In games the Yankees win, Judge is batting .335.

• The Yankees don’t win when Judge doesn’t hit. In Yankees loses, Judge is batting .230.

• Aaron Judge has had 18 at bats as a pinch-hitter but is just 1-for-18 (.056) with 11 strikeouts.

• Judge has a grand total of nine games played as the team’s #4 (clean-up) hitter. That’s the fewest amount of games he has appeared in any batting order spot.

• The most popular spot for Judge is second. He has batted second in 634 games (53.4% of the games he has played).

• If a pitcher can get to two strikes against Aaron Judge, that pitcher most often owns him. With two strikes, Judge’s batting average is .191.

• That being said, a pitcher would be wise to not throw too good of a pitch to Aaron Judge as he begins an at-bat. Just hits .443 on the first pitch of an at-bat.

• Even worse for a pitcher, on 1-0 counts, Judge bats .456.

• A pitcher never wants to get behind Judge 2-0. In those counts, Aaron Judge is batting .489.

• Overall, Aaron Judge mashes when he is ahead in the count. He hits .347 in that situation. If the pitcher gets ahead, Judge bats just .211.

• Judge’s best inning is the sixth. He is batting .319 in the 6^th inning.

• His worst inning is the ninth. He is batting .259 in the 9^th inning.

• Aaron Judge bats .239 in extra innings.

• One would probably think that Aaron Judge feats on fastballs, but he does not. Against power pitchers, Judge is hitting .238.

• He hits .318 against finesse pitchers.

• Judge mashes against the Chicago White Sox. His batting average is .406.

• Judge is batting just .198 against the Houston Astros.

• He hits his most home runs against the Baltimore Orioles. The Birds have seen Judge take a trip around the bases 53 times.

• Judge has hit only one home run against the St. Louis Cardinals.

• Outside of Yankee Stadium, Judge has gone yard the most at Camden Yards.

• Aaron Judge had one home run as a visiting ballplayer in Tampa at George M. Steinbrenner Field.

• Judge has batted 115 times with the bases loaded. He has nine grand slams and is batting .333 in those situations with 104 runs batted in.

• For his career, the player most similar to Aaron Judge is Ralph Kiner.

• The most similar player through his age-33 season is Mark McGwire.

• Of all of the most similar players to Aaron Judge, the only Hall of Famers to date are Ralph Kiner and Willie McCovey.

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  Paul Semendinger’s newest books West Point at Gettysburg and The Greatest New York Yankees By Uniform Number are highly acclaimed. Paul runs the Yankees site Start Spreading the News.