MINNEAPOLIS — The party line around the Yankees in recent weeks, as Aaron Judge began to emerge from his slow start to the season, was that he was not locked in yet.
The Yankees captain still won’t admit it, but his at-bats recently are indicating otherwise, with Wednesday providing the latest proof.
Judge crushed his 11th home run of the season, a 467-foot moonshot, and added three doubles and a walk to lead the Yankees past the Twins 4-0 at Target Field.
“We’re getting there, we’re getting there,” Judge said with a grin after going 4-for-4 with two RBIs and two runs scored. “Not there yet. Hopefully we get there when we’re talking in November.”
Marcus Stroman aided the cause by tossing six shutout innings to keep the Twins (24-18) in check while the Yankees (29-15) won for the ninth time in their last 11 games.
They also secured their 11th series win in 14 chances.
It was less than two weeks ago that Aaron Boone was asked again about Judge’s quiet start, and the Yankees manager continued to preach patience.
Boone insisted that somebody was eventually going to pay for it “big-time,” and that Judge would “get it going and look out when he does.”
It didn’t exactly take Nostradamus to predict that, but as Boone suggested, opposing pitchers are now feeling the pain, particularly after his tape-measure blast off Twins right-hander Pablo Lopez.
“He’s hit that ball off me before,” said Stroman, who gave up Judge’s longest home run of his career at 496 feet in 2017. “It’s not a good feeling. But he’s special, man, and he’s locked in right now. … Huge momentum shifter.”
Judge is now batting .383 (23-for-60) with a 1.350 OPS and seven home runs across his last 17 games.
During that span, he has raised his average from .178 to .255 and OPS from .674 to .926.
“I mean, it’s Aaron Judge,” Boone said. “Yeah, so much for that tough start.”
Judge’s biggest game of the season, spearheading the Yankees’ 13-hit attack, started on the first pitch he saw. In the first inning, Lopez threw him a 95 mph fastball down the middle and Judge pounced on it, clobbering it a few rows deep into the third deck in left field.
“He felt a little oversized for the park,” Boone said. “What a show he put on today.”
The 467-foot blast was the third-longest in the majors this season, trailing Judge’s own 473-foot shot against the Astros last week and another 473-footer from Mike Trout.
“You don’t even feel it,” Judge said. “When you get it on the barrel like that and you’re locked in, timed up, you don’t even feel it. I was happy to get that early run because when you’re facing Pablo Lopez, it’s going to be a dogfight, a battle. We get an early run and let Stroman ease in there.”
After Anthony Volpe’s sacrifice fly made it 2-0 in the second inning, Judge came back up in the third and ripped a double off the right-center field wall.
Two singles by Alex Verdugo and Giancarlo Stanton — who both recorded multi-hit games — later, the Yankees led 3-0.
While Judge’s fifth-inning double to the gap in left-center went to waste, he padded the Yankees’ lead in the seventh inning.
After Juan Soto doubled off the right-field wall, Judge smoked a laser over the head of center fielder Willi Castro for an RBI double to make it 4-0.
That was plenty of support for Stroman, who turned in what Boone described as a “gritty” outing.
He had to battle across his six innings of work but allowed only six base runners (two hits, three walks and an error) and struck out a pair.
He started and finished strong, with the first and sixth innings his only clean frames.
Judge took care of the rest, continuing to build on his red-hot stretch that he insists comes down to one simple factor.
“It’s how it’s been all year, I’m just making contact,” Judge said. “That’s the only difference.”
