New York Yankees 12, Milwaukee Brewers 8
MILWAUKEE — Aaron Judge hit his 58th and 59th home runs of the season on Sunday, helping the New York Yankees beat the Milwaukee Brewers 12-8 and move within two home runs of Roger Maris’ American League record with 16 games left.
Judge’s two-run double in the ninth was one of New York’s four hits on a day when they hit five home runs and avoided being swept in three games. In the AL East, the Yankees now have a 5 1/2-game lead over the second-place Toronto Blue Jays.
Judge’s 11th game with more than one home run tied Hank Greenberg of Detroit for the season record. Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs did the same thing in 1998.
Judge has the most home runs and RBI in the major leagues and is trying to win the Triple Crown. His batting average of .3162 is close to the AL leaders, Minnesota’s Luis Arraez at .317 and Boston’s Xander Bogaerts at .3164.
Milwaukee (78-68) fell two games behind San Diego (which played later Sunday) for the third and final NL wild card.
All of Judge’s home runs went 857 feet. On a sinker from Jason Alexander with two outs in the third inning, he got his first hit. The 414-foot, opposite-field drive into the right field second deck left the bat at 112 mph.
Then, in the seventh inning against Luis Perdomo, Judge hit a 443-foot shot to left on a 1-2 count.
Judge also walked against Hoby Milner (3-3) to start a four-run fifth, giving the Yankees a 7-4 lead.
Judge had not homered in his previous three games after going deep twice at Fenway Park in Boston.
Kyle Schwarber of the Philadelphia Phillies is a distant second in the majors with 39 home runs.
Maris led the Yankees with 61 home runs in 1961, one more than Babe Ruth did in 1927.
Anthony Rizzo hit his 31st home run of the season when he came back from the injured list. He also had three hits. Aaron Hicks and rookie Oswaldo Cabrera both hit home runs to help the Yankees come back from being down 3-0 and 4-1.
New York had 16 hits, and Judge, Rizzo, Hicks, and Judge all hit home runs in the same inning twice.
Gerrit Cole (12-7) let Kolten Wong hit a three-run homer in the first inning and Tyrone Taylor hit a solo homer in the second. Cole has given up the second-most home runs in the majors, behind only Washington’s Josiah Gray, who has given up 37.
Clarke Schmidt gave up a two-run homer to Rowdy Tellez in the eighth inning. Milwaukee scored twice in the ninth inning and had the tying run on base with one out before Clay Holmes struck out Luis Uras and got Keston Hiura to ground out to end the game.
UP NEXT
Nestor Cortes, a left-handed pitcher for the Yankees who are 10-4 and has an ERA of 2.70, will make his 26th start of the season Tuesday when New York hosts Pittsburgh in the first of a two-game set.
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