SAN DIEGO — Who’s hotter, Aaron Judge or the Yankees rotation?
Judge may actually cool off at some point, or even return to normalcy. And a Yankees starter may allow a run or three at some point, too.
But until further notice, they both remain a giant red ball of flames.
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Judge continued the torrid stretch that he has been on for nearly a month now, homering for a fourth straight game, while Marcus Stroman became the fourth straight starter to throw a scoreless outing on the way to the Yankees’ fourth straight win, 4-1 over the Padres at Petco Park.
“Just watching greatness,” said Stroman, who scattered three hits and a walk across six shutout innings. “Sometimes you can kind of take it for granted, to be honest, but this is something I’ll be sitting with my grandkids at some point saying I got the opportunity to play with Aaron Judge and Juan Soto and Gerrit Cole. Those are going to be three of the best players I think to ever play this game.”
As Judge goes, the Yankees (37-17) often go, so they have not surprisingly surged during their captain’s hot streak, winning for the 17th time in their last 21 games on Saturday in front of a sellout crowd of 44,845.
Judge added a double and came around to score in the fourth inning.
Over his last 20 games alone, he has piled up 12 doubles and 11 home runs, becoming the first player since at least 1901 to accomplish that feat.
“That’s my season,” Alex Verdugo deadpanned before breaking out in laughter. “But really, he’s special. … He’s a different animal and he just needs to touch it and the ball jumps off way different than other guys.”
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Over his last 27 games, Judge is batting .391 (36-for-92) with a 1.458 OPS, 12 doubles and 13 home runs.
And 15 of his 17 hits over the last 11 games have gone for extra bases — eight doubles and seven home runs.
“What Aaron’s doing is what the greats do from time to time,” manager Aaron Boone said.
Saturday also marked the third time in his career that Judge has homered in four straight games.
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The last one came in September of 2022 on his way to hitting 62 home runs.
He is now tied for the major-league lead with 17 home runs this season.
Of course, the Yankees also have been buoyed by their terrific starting pitching, which continued to thrive against the Padres (27-28).
Stroman, Carlos Rodon, Luis Gil and Nestor Cortes have combined to throw 23 ¹/₃ scoreless innings over the last four games.
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“I feel like they’re feeding off each other, trying to one-up the next guy,” Judge said. “As an offense, you see that and you feed off that, knowing, ‘Hey, if we can get a couple runs early and get our guy comfortable, he’s going to keep cruising.’It’s been impressive to see what our starters are doing.”
Stroman also turned in the Yankees’ 13th straight start in which their pitcher has gone at least five innings and allowed two or fewer runs, one shy of the longest such streak since 1893.
During that stretch, Yankees starters have combined to post a 0.78 ERA across 80 ²/₃ innings.
“I think the other starters have been incredible,” Stroman said. “It creates a flow of energy. Each guy kind of hands it off to the next guy and we’re all expecting each other to be great. We’re all doing this without having the best pitcher in baseball, Cole, who we’re all dying to get back. So it’s been a fun run.”
The Padres did not score until Fernando Tatis Jr. took Luke Weaver deep in the eighth inning, snapping the Yankees pitchers’ scoreless streak at 26 ¹/₃ innings.
But Clay Holmes recorded his 15th save with a scoreless ninth.
Anthony Volpe extended his career-high hitting streak to 18 games by leading off the night with a line-drive single up the middle. It marks the longest hitting streak by a Yankee since Derek Jeter’s 19-gamer in 2012.
Volpe set the table for Judge’s home run, a 429-foot shot as the Yankees jumped on Dylan Cease and gave Stroman all the offense he needed.
