NEW YORK — Aaron Judge does not usually talk like this.
The three-time MVP is the most measured voice in the Yankees clubhouse. He rarely turns the spotlight on himself. So when he was asked about his struggles after Thursday’s loss, the answer landed hard.
Judge was blunt about where his at-bats stand right now.
“I’m not doing enough at the plate,” Judge said. “That’s what we’re doing right there. I wouldn’t say we’re not seeing the ball well. I think it’s about making sure we’re swinging at the right pitches.”
For most hitters, a few quiet nights mean nothing. For Judge, it is a flashing warning light. And the timing could not be worse for the Yankees.
The drought hits a career-worst mark
Judge has now gone 10 straight games without an RBI. That ties the longest such drought of his entire career, something he has done three times before.
The numbers over that stretch are jarring for a player of his caliber. In his last 10 games, Judge is hitting .184 with zero home runs, zero RBIs, 13 strikeouts, and a .516 OPS.
Thursday’s 2-0 loss summed it up. Judge went 0-for-4 with a strikeout. For the four-game series, he had one hit and eight strikeouts. He whiffed four times alone on Wednesday.
One moment captured it. A successful catcher’s challenge flipped a ball to strike three, handing Judge his seventh straight strikeout across at-bats. Even the technology turned on him.
Judge cannot carry the Yankees alone
Here is the real warning buried inside Judge’s honesty. The Yankees have leaned on him to drag the offense for years. Right now, the Yankees captain cannot. And there is no one consistently picking up the slack.
When Ben Rice hit his 16th home run earlier this week to tie Judge for the Yankees team lead, the expectation was that Judge would answer. That is the pattern. Back in April, Judge had even joked about Rice creeping up on him, saying he could not let Rice catch him.
This time, there was no answer. Not in that game. Not in the two that followed.
The Yankees offense was shut out for the fifth time this season on Thursday. The team managed three hits. Over the final two games against Toronto, the Yankees scored one run total. When Judge goes quiet, the whole lineup seems to go quiet with him. That is the structural problem this slump exposes.
Manager Aaron Boone tried to frame it as a passing phase. He has watched Judge climb out of these dips before and wanted to keep the concern low.
“He’s just going through it a little bit right now,” Boone said. “Usually, that means good things are coming on the other side. He’s a little in-between, probably. Fastballs got on him, and he was a little out in front of some other pitches.”
Boone went further, calling it a timing issue rather than anything mechanical or physical.
“Usually anytime a hitter goes through it, it’s a little timing related,” Boone said. “I think that’s all it is. He’ll get through it, and somebody will pay the price real soon.”
That is the bet the Yankees are making. That this is timing, not decline. The difference between those two things is everything for a team chasing the first-place Rays.
The bigger picture is still elite, but slipping
Step back from the 10-game window and Judge is still having a season most hitters would dream about.
He enters Friday batting .250 with 46 hits, 16 home runs, 30 RBIs, 40 runs, and five steals in 51 games. His OPS sits at .935. He is tied with Rice for third in homers among all big leaguers and ranks seventh in OPS. By any normal standard, those are excellent numbers.
But there are cracks worth watching for a Yankees player who set an impossibly high bar. This is the first time a Judge OPS has dipped below 1.000 for the Yankees at this stage since 2021. His strikeout rate has climbed. His walk rate has fallen from its recent peaks. His hard-hit rate and barrel rate, while still strong, are down from where Judge has lived in his best years.
Judge is 34, in his 11th Yankees season. The decline question gets whispered any time he goes cold. He has spent years defying age. A 10-game slump does not undo that. But it invites the conversation.
The Rays arrive at the worst possible time
The Yankees do not get a soft opponent to break the funk. The first-place Rays come to Yankee Stadium on Friday with the best record in the American League and a pitching staff that does not give in.
Judge knows the lineup has to produce against that kind of arm talent. He acknowledged the challenge ahead while insisting the offense is closer than the results suggest.
“Anytime you’ve got a hot team coming in, it’s going to make it tough,” Judge said. “Especially a team like that. We’ve just got to tighten up a couple of things here with us and we’ll be right where we need to be.”
He also pushed back on the idea that the offense is broken, pointing to the small margins that separate a quiet night from a productive one.
“The offense isn’t too far off,” Judge said. “You get a couple of timely hits, you get a couple of walks when you need it, and some good things are going to happen. You’ve just got to get some traffic back out there.”
Judge was candid about the series the Yankees let slip away. Toronto ended the Yankees season last October, and this felt like missed payback.
“They got a great ball club over there,” Judge said. “We’ve got some work to do. We don’t like splitting that series, but we’ll take care of business in the next one.”
That is the Yankees captain talking. Honest. Accountable. And quietly sounding the Yankees alarm. If Judge needs help, the rest of the Yankees lineup has to deliver it. The Rays will not wait for anyone to find their timing.
What do you think? Is he on the decline?
