Inside Yankees star Aaron Judge's World Series struggles
Another World Series game, another rough night at the plate for Aaron Judge. After he went 0-for-3 with another strikeout in the New York Yankees' Game 3 loss Monday night, New York finds itself in a familiar spot: waiting for its star slugger to break out.
"He's one swing away," Yankees hitting coach James Rowson told ESPN on Monday. "I know it's a big story, but from my standpoint, this guy is one of the best hitters to ever play the game. On any given night, the whole narrative gets rewritten."
But with the Los Angeles Dodgers one win away from a World Series sweep, New York's superstar slugger is running out of opportunities to flip the script. And those around the sport watching from the scouts' seats, the executive offices or even just in front of their television sets at home see a specific problem that needs to be solved: Judge is chasing too many pitches outside the zone, and L.A. is taking advantage of it.
"The Dodgers are feeding him spin, spin, spin that he is chasing," an American League scout told ESPN. "Then the fastball looks harder than it actually is, so he is out of timing. He needs to stop worrying about the big moment and just go with those sliders and take them into right field and the right-center-field gap."
Handling anything thrown with break or spin has been Judge's Achilles' heel all postseason. According to ESPN Research, he's hitting just .071 on breaking pitches in October, compared to .258 during the regular season. Meanwhile, his strikeout rate on those pitches is a whopping 58.5% compared to 39.8% from March through September.
Every time he flails at another breaking pitch for a strikeout, it allows the Dodgers to keep attacking with the same plan instead of having to challenge him with heat.