{"id":495447,"date":"2026-02-21T21:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495447\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T21:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:33:10","slug":"yankees-judge-smashes-2-hrs-in-spring-debut-excited-about-wbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495447\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees’ Judge smashes 2 HRs in spring debut, ‘excited’ about WBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. — New York Yankees<\/a> slugger Aaron Judge<\/a> hit two homers in his spring debut as he prepares for the World Baseball Classic next month.<\/p>\n

The three-time Most Valuable Player hit a pair of two-run shots, one in the third inning and another in the fourth against the Detroit Tigers<\/a>. He finished 2-for-3 with four RBIs.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n

2 Related<\/p>\n

Judge, 33, has won the MVP in three of the past four seasons, including last year, when he hit .331 with 53 homers and 114 RBIs.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got the WBC coming up, which I’m excited about, and an exciting Yankees season,” Judge said after his performance. “We’ve got a lot of unfinished business from last season, especially the way it ended for us. I’m just trying to put myself in the best position to help this team win a lot of ballgames.”<\/p>\n

Judge will be part of what looks like a loaded Team USA lineup in the WBC. The position player group also includes Bryce Harper<\/a>, Gunnar Henderson<\/a>, Bobby Witt Jr<\/a>., Cal Raleigh<\/a> and Kyle Schwarber<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The WBC’s pool play round runs from March 5-11 at four sites in Tokyo, Houston, Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The championship game will be on March 17 in Miami.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. — New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hit two homers in his spring debut as he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-495447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}