Aaron Judge tied Joe DiMaggio for fourth place on the Yankees’ all-time home run list by going deep in each of his first two at-bats of New York’s game against the visiting Detroit Tigers on Thursday.
Judge hit his 360th career homer off opener Tyler Holton in the first inning – a 413-foot blast to left center that landed in the bullpen. He equaled DiMaggio with a 434-foot round-tripper over the bullpen in the third off Sawyer Gipson-Long.
Judge tied DiMaggio in his 4,925th career plate appearance — 2,747 fewer plate appearances than DiMaggio collected from 1936 through 1951 in a 13-season career interrupted by a three-year military stint during World War II.
The milestone homer was the second of the week for Judge, who moved past Yogi Berra with his 359th homer in Tuesday’s series opener.
Judge ended the night 3-for-4 with three runs as the Yankees salvaged the finale of a three-game series with a 9-3 victory.
Judge, who is playing through a flexor strain in his right elbow that necessitated a stint on the injured list earlier this summer, has 46 homers this season, second-most in the American League behind Cal Raleigh. He is seeking his fourth 50-homer season.
When Judge came up again in the fourth, Gipson-Long hit him in the left elbow with an offspeed pitch. While the Yankee Stadium crowd booed, Tigers manager A.J. Hitch walked to the mound and removed Gipson-Long.
–Field Level Media
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