The Aaron Judge Home Run Tracker: Game 139

Welcome back to the Aaron Judge Home Run Record Tracker! We’re taking a daily look at where Aaron Judge’s monster season tracks compared to some of the other historic single-season home run leaders in anticipation of Judge potentially joining their ranks. We’ll be going by Team Game because not every player’s seasons were in sync with the calendar days and everyone didn’t play all of the team’s games, which makes this our universal standard. Now, onto Game 139:

Aaron Judge through Game 139 of 2022: 55 HR

Team Game 139: 9/9 — 2-for-4, 2 1B, 1 RBI, 2 K

Just another performance from Judge and the Yankees that feels all too familiar from this second half. Judge does what he can to try and carry this team, and the players around him fail him. He provided half of the team’s offensive output with an RBI single and reached base three times, but the lineup around him once again looked rather listless. Judge and the Yankees will have to regroup quickly ahead of a matinee today against Tampa.

Roger Maris through Game 139 of 1961: 53 HR

Team Game 139: 9/5 — 0-for-4

Just a clean, old-fashioned Oh-fer for Roger today. No walks, no strikeouts, no times reaching base. Just four balls in play, corralled by the defense for outs. As often seemed to be the case, Mickey Mantle took advantage of his teammates off day to close the gap in the ‘61 home run chase, hitting a solo homer for his 51st of the year.

Babe Ruth through Game 139 of 1927: 51 HR

Team Game 139: 9/11 — 1-for-4, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 1 R

Ruth was really starting his finishing kick here. After notching number 50 yesterday, he moved right on to 51, this one a fourth-inning solo shot off Milt Gaston. Ruth and his teammates couldn’t manage much else that day, though, with the Yankees falling 6-1 to the St. Louis Browns.

Barry Bonds through Game 139 of 2001: 59 HR

Team Game 139: 9/4 — 2-for-2, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 2 R, 2 BB

Pretty close to a vintage game for Bonds. A single, two walks, and his 59th homer of 2001:

This one came in the seventh off of Miguel Batista, and helped the Giants to a 5-2 win. Bonds didn’t quite get into this dinger the way he did some of his other moonshots, but it all counts the same in the record books.

Mark McGwire through Game 139 of 1998: 57 HR

Team Game 139: 9/1 — 3-for-5, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 3 R

McGwire was on fire, launching two home runs in consecutive at-bats against the Marlins:

Watch the video of each dinger, and you’ll see they were almost carbon copies of each other, long shots to nearly the exact spot in center field. For the first home run, there was a lone fan that had snuck into the tarped-off center field area to try and secure a long ball. By the second dinger, a small army of fans had assembled to corral a potential dinger.

Sammy Sosa through Game 139 of 1998: 55 HR

Team Game 139: 9/1 — 0-for-4, 3 K

Sammy lost some ground here, having entered the night tied with McGwire, but unable to match McGwire’s two-homer game. In fact, this was one of Sosa’s worst games of 1998. Each of his outs either came with runners on or to lead off an inning, meaning that by Win Probability Added, Sosa did more to hurt his team’s chances of winning than any other player in this particular game. The Cubs were able to squeeze this one out, holding off the Reds for a 6-5 win.