Not only is New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge putting together what looks to be â barring an injury or prolonged slump â one of the greatest seasons ever assembled by a hitter, he also takes his role as team captain seriously.
As Judge proved over the weekend, the 33-year-old, two-time American League MVP â who appears to be cruising to his third, and second in a row, this year â places high priority on supporting his teammates, even as they struggle to the point where they drag the team down.
Judge is undoubtedly in a position to demand perfection. His own career, and 2025 season, may not be perfect but it’s been as close as a Major League Baseball player is going to get. This year, Judge leads the AL in home runs with 18, a pace that would give him 53 for the year if he equalled his 704 plate appearances from 2024.
Judge’s Historic Season Unfolds
While batting average has fallen out of fashion as a statistic, in favor more comprehensive stats such as on-base percentage and OPS, Judge is nonetheless on pace to win his first batting title. Hitting a phenomenal .398 as of Tuesday, the Yankees 2013 first-round draft pick out off Cal State-Fresno is on a pace for the highest single-season batting average since Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres hit .394 in 1994.
Judge also leads the majors in on-base percentage at .492, slugging with .756 and OPS at 1.248 â as well as hits (80) and extra-base hits (34).
Obviously, Judge is a major reason that the Yankees have now won seven of their last eight games and 14 of their last 17 to get to 33-20 â second-best record in the AL and third in MLB â and six games ahead of the second-place Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East.
On the other end of the spectrum in Oswald Peraza, who as recently as 2023 was ranked by MLB Pipeline as the Yankees No. 3 prospect, and 52nd overall in baseball. But the 24-year-old from Barquisimeto, Venezuela, has been a bust at the Major League level, and in 2025 is suffering through his worst season, albeit in a part-time role.
Judge Says Peraza Makes ‘Good Things’ Happen
Peraza has notched just five hits in his last 49 at-bats. But after Peraza’s RBI double on Saturday ignited a 10-run Yankee rally in the fifth inning of the Bronx Bombers’ game against the Rockies in Colorado, Judge went out of his way to offer public support to his struggling, young teammate.
âGive him a chance to play every single day,” Judge told reporters after that game. “Good things are going to happen.”
Yankees batting coach Jim Rowson also saw positives coming from the once-highly regarded prospect.
âYou can see when the ball strikes the barrel,â Rowson said of Peraza recently. âHeâs getting to that point where heâs doing that more consistently.â
Peraza has played 26 of his 33 games this season at third base, pressed into service there after injuries to D.J. LeMahieu (who has since returned from a calf injury that kept him sidelined since spring training), and Oswaldo Cabrera who suffered a gruesome ankle break in a play at the plate in Seattle on May 12.
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