Judge and Ohtani Continue to Make History With Incredible Week

Sports

By Associated Press

Published 3 weeks ago on

August 26, 2024

Aaron Judge homered seven times in six games for the New York Yankees, including twice on Sunday to bring his season total to 51. He is on pace to surpass 60 for the second time in three years, and his American League record of 62 in 2022 could very well fall. (AP/LM Otero)

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Even by their lofty standards, Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani had quite a week.

Judge homered seven times in six games for the New York Yankees, including twice on Sunday to bring his season total to 51. He is on pace to surpass 60 for the second time in three years, and his American League record of 62 in 2022 could very well fall.

Ohtani became only the sixth player to reach 40 homers and 40 steals in a season, and he did it with over a week left in August. And in dramatic fashion — home run No. 40 was a walk-off grand slam for the Los Angeles Dodgers against Tampa Bay on Friday night.

Historic Achievements in Context

There’s never been a 50-50 player, but Ohtani clearly has a shot. Here are a couple more stats that underscore the historic nature of what Judge and Ohtani are doing:

— OPS+ is a stat that takes a player’s on-base and slugging percentages and compares them to the league average and factors in ballpark effects. Baseball Reference has Judge’s OPS+ at 230, with 100 being league average. Only three players (minimum 500 plate appearances) have finished a season with an OPS+ above 230: Barry Bonds (2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004), Babe Ruth (1920, 1921 and 1923) and Ted Williams (1941 and 1957).

— Power-Speed Number was invented by Bill James as a way of condensing a player’s homers and steals into a single figure. The formula is actually pretty simple: 2(HR x SB)/(HR + SB). Right now Ohtani’s power-speed number is 40.5, which already puts him at No. 9 of all time for a single season. For a quarter-century, the record was 43.9 by Alex Rodriguez in 1998, but Ronald Acuña Jr. blew past that last year, hitting 41 homers with 73 steals for a power-speed number of 52.5.

Triple Crown Possibilities

Judge leads the major leagues in home runs and RBIs (122) but his .333 average is 14 points behind Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. He also is not the only player with a Triple Crown shot this season.

In the National League, Atlanta’s Marcell Ozuna is in first place with a .305 average. He also is tied with Ohtani for the RBI lead at 94, and with 37 home runs, Ozuna is just four behind Ohtani. So it’s possible Ozuna could win the NL Triple Crown while trailing Judge in all three categories.

Trivia Time

Per Baseball Reference, Judge has been worth 9.4 wins above replacement in 129 games this season. Among non-pitchers, who holds the record for the highest WAR in a season while finishing with fewer than 130 games played? (Hint: The record is actually 9.4, so Judge would tie it if he ended his season now.)

Line of the Week

Toronto’s Bowden Francis struck out 12 in eight-plus innings, allowing one hit in a 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday. Francis had a no-hitter broken up in the ninth.

It’s been a hugely disappointing season for the last-place Blue Jays, but they’ve won six of their last eight and are now just five games under .500.

Comeback of the Week

A day after firing manager Scott Servais, the Seattle Mariners trailed San Francisco 5-1 in the bottom of the eighth. Then they strung together six straight singles, which gave them the four runs they needed to tie the game. After an unusual ninth inning in which all three hitters for each team struck out swinging, Seattle won it 6-5 on a 10th-inning single by Leo Rivas.

The Mariners had a win probability of 3.2% at the start of the eighth, according to Baseball Savant.