NEW YORK — Monday night at Yankee Stadium had everything a baseball fan could want. A walk-off finish. A five-game losing streak snapped. Six lead changes in nine innings. And something that had not happened anywhere in the sport since 1962.
Aaron Judge and Mike Trout each hit two home runs. Both are three-time MVP Award winners. The combination of two multi-time MVPs going deep twice in the same game has occurred only four times in recorded MLB history. Judge and Trout accounted for the fourth, becoming the first opposing players to achieve the feat.
The Yankees survived an 11-10 walk-off at Yankee Stadium, rallying in the ninth inning on a Trent Grisham two-run blast off Jordan Romano and winning on a wild pitch. But the evening was defined, first and last, by two of the greatest players of their generation trading home runs in a duel that the record books will carry for a very long time.
A feat six decades in the making
The historical list is short. On June 21, 1956, Hall of Famers Roy Campanella of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals each homered twice in the same contest. Then came July 3 and July 6, 1962, when Yankees teammates Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle did it twice within three days of each other during New York’s dynasty years. However, the Judge-Trout duel is only the second in MLB history after 1956 where two oppposing MVPs went on a showdown.
Monday in the Bronx was the fourth occurrence in baseball history and the first between opposing players both holding three MVP trophies. Judge and Trout share six MVP awards combined. Yankees manager Aaron Boone was asked postgame to assess what the duel delivered, and he kept the answer short.
“That part certainly delivered,” Boone said of the head-to-head between the two sluggers.
The blow-by-blow of an all-time exchange
Aaron Judge opened the scoring in the bottom of the first inning. He pulled a two-run shot off Angels lefty Yusei Kikuchi 456 feet into the left-center bleachers. Exit velocity: 116 mph. The Yankees scored twice in the first and twice more in the second, building a 4-0 lead through two innings, and the home crowd was already on its feet.
Trout answered in the sixth. He worked a full count against reliever Jake Bird, took a tight cutter up and in that visibly irritated him, then crushed an 85.1 mph sweeper 421 feet to left at 108.7 mph for a three-run home run that tied the game. He stood at the plate and watched it land. Trout had been hit on the hand by a fastball in Seattle the previous week, missing a game, and the brushback from Bird brought that tension to the surface. He kept his response measured.
“I think anybody who gets anything up and in will get a little upset,” Trout said. “It is what it is.”
The Yankees did not wait long to respond. In the bottom of the sixth, Judge drove a solo shot off Shaun Anderson into the second deck at 111.4 mph and 398 feet. The home run had its own backstory. Anderson had sent a fastball past Judge’s head in the fourth inning, drawing a long, pointed stare from the Yankees captain. , Judge waited on an 83 mph changeup and launched it into the upper deck.
Trout was not done. In the eighth, he drove a two-run shot off Camilo Doval to put the Angels in front 10-8. For a few minutes, it appeared Trout would have the last word. Grisham made sure he did not.
Judge moves past Mantle in Yankees franchise history
The second home run was Judge’s 47th career multi-homer game, moving him past Mickey Mantle on the Yankees’ all-time list for that category. Only Babe Ruth stands ahead of him now, with 68 multi-homer games in pinstripes and a major league record of 72 overall.
Judge also has more multi-homer games than any player through his first 1,161 major league appearances. Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner is next on that list with 39. Among his six home runs on the 2026 season, four have given the Yankees a lead. He had also gone deep in his final at-bat of Sunday’s loss to Tampa Bay, arriving Monday with momentum beginning to build.
On the milestone, Judge tied it to the result and pointed forward.
“That’s special,” Judge said. “I’m glad it came in a win. Hopefully, we can keep going.”
When the conversation shifted to Trout, Judge dropped the competitive framing and spoke plainly about what the Angels star represents in the sport. The Yankees captain acknowledged the weight of sharing a field with a player he considers the best of his era.
“He’s the greatest of all time,” Judge said. “Coming up at such a young age, he’s special. He’s had to battle injuries, but he’s in a better spot now.”
Boone called Judge’s overall night “huge” and made clear what it means to the Yankees offense when their captain is locked in. With the Yankees having stumbled through a difficult early stretch, the timing of Judge’s surge was welcome.
“Hopefully, we start to see him lock in here as we get rolling. I don’t have to tell you what he means to the offense,” Boone said.
Trout reflects on the best game in years
Trout, 34, grew up roughly 140 miles from the Bronx in Millville, N.J. Games at Yankee Stadium have always carried extra weight for him. Monday was one of the better individual performances of his recent career. He now has 31 career multi-homer games, the most in Angels franchise history. Even in defeat, Trout did not shy away from what the night meant.
“It was definitely a battle,” Trout said. “A fun one to be part of. The loss is disappointing, but we fought throughout the whole game. To go blow for blow like that back and forth with both teams, it’s pretty cool.”
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