{"id":691631,"date":"2026-05-25T00:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T00:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/691631\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T00:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T00:47:08","slug":"aaron-judges-walk-off-homer-against-tampa-bay-rays-ends-frustrating-two-weeks-without-homer-or-rbis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/691631\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Judge\u2019s walk-off homer against Tampa Bay Rays ends frustrating two weeks without homer or RBIs"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Aaron Judge<\/a> hit a fly to right field, briefly watched the ball go over the wall and dropped his bat at first base before starting his trot.<\/p>\n

Judge\u2019s long home run drought was over, and there was a celebration waiting for him at the plate.<\/p>\n

Judge ended a career-high, 11-game slump without an RBI. hitting a two-run homer off Kevin Kelly<\/a> in the ninth inning that lifted the New York Yankees<\/a> over the Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> 2-0 Sunday for their first win in five games this year against their AL East rival.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just a great swing from him,\u201d manager Aaron Boone said.<\/p>\n

Judge hit his first homer and drove in his first runs since going deep in the first inning off Logan Henderson<\/a> in Milwaukee on May 10. In between homers, Judge had gone 8 for 43 and the Yankees lost seven of 11 games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no frustration, I got a job to do,\u201d Judge said. \u201cObviously I want to get the job done and help the team win and we weren\u2019t winning, so I was mad about that. But no homers, RBIs, you can find other ways to help your team win. So that\u2019s what I was trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge\u2019s 363-foot drive into the wind would have been a home run in just three major league ballparks: Citizens Bank Park and Great American Ball Park are the others. It was his fourth walk-off homer and first since 2022 when he hit three game-ending homers and 62 overall, one more than Roger Maris\u2019 previous AL season record.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really feels like a matter of time,\u201d Bellinger said. \u201cThis game is so difficult. He\u2019s literally one of the best hitters of all-time, so it was just a short little period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge homered three days after saying \u201cI\u2019m not doing nothing at the plate.\u201d \u201d to describe a 1-for-24 slide that dropped his average to .246. He ended Friday\u2019s 4-2 loss with a 396-foot flyout to left fielder Chandler Simpson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a 1-for-24 slide and hitless in 15 at-bats, he singled in the first inning Sunday before getting doubled off on Ben Rice<\/a>\u2019s flyout.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been putting good swings on balls,\u201d New York starter Ryan Weathers<\/a> said. \u201cHe\u2019s just been having bad luck lately and that was a pretty impressive homer to get it out in these conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge\u2019s drive moved the Yankees within 4 1\/2 games of the Rays in the AL East.<\/p>\n

Bellinger\u2019s great defensive play<\/p>\n

New York left fielder Cody Bellinger<\/a> made a key defensive play with two outs in the eighth.<\/p>\n

With pinch runner Oliver Dunn<\/a> at second and Junior Caminero<\/a> at first, Ryan Vilade<\/a> singled to left. Bellinger made a one-hop throw to get a sliding Caminero at third as Ryan McMahon<\/a> applied the tag before Dunn crossed the plate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to go to third so there wouldn\u2019t be a play at home, and credit to Cody for going to third base and getting the out,\u201d Caminero said through an interpreter.<\/p>\n

It was Bellinger\u2019s third outfield assist this season and his seventh in 175 games in left field.<\/p>\n

\u201cI picked my head up and Mac had a huge target at third,\u201d Bellinger said. \u201cI actually threw I thought a pretty nasty sinker to him and he picked it, did a great job of picking it and putting the tag on.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n

Larry Fleisher, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Aaron Judge hit a fly to right field, briefly watched the ball go over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-691631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}