Aaron Judge breaks 16-game home run drought with go-ahead grand slam in win over Red Sox

Aaron Judge came into Friday night’s 5-4 win over the Boston Red Sox on the longest home run drought of his career. The New York Yankees slugger hadn’t hit a home run in his past 16 games.

However, Judge picked the ideal moment to jump-start his power outage and did so with maximum drama. The Yankees slugger hit a grand slam in the seventh inning off Red Sox reliever Cam Booser for a 5-4 lead, rallying from a 4-0 deficit to begin the frame.

Booser would surely prefer to have that pitch back, grooving a 96 mph four-seam fastball right down the middle of the plate. Teed up for him, Judge did not miss. And that 16-game home run drought was launched very much into the past.

Judge last hit a home run on Aug. 25 when he hit his 50th and 51st of the season against the Colorado Rockies. At the time, he appeared to be well on his way to the third 60-homer season of his career. He hadn’t gone deep since appearing in animated form on the “Paw Patrol” spinoff, “Rubble & Crew. The “Paw Patrol” curse now appears to be broken.

With 14 games remaining in the regular season, 60 is still within reach. Yet he’s currently on pace to finish with 57 home runs this season.

After flying out to center field in the first inning, Judge also set his longest streak of plate appearances without a home run with 70. In his rookie season of 2017, Judge went 69 plate appearances without a homer despite going on to hit 52 and winning American League Rookie of the Year honors.

Batting 2-for-4 on Friday, Judge may also have broken a September slump during which he was batting only .195 (8-for-41) with a .570 OPS. It’s been his worst month of the season since April, when he hit .207 with a .754 OPS.

With the win, the Yankees gained a game on their first-place lead over the Baltimore Orioles, who lost 1–0 to the Detroit Tigers — and were nearly no-hit — on Friday. New York now leads the O’s by three games and knocked the Red Sox to five games out of the AL’s third wild-card playoff spot.