Aaron Judge HR celebration

New York Yankees’ rookie right fielder Aaron Judge has been making quite the impact with his homers this year, breaking a Yankee Stadium concourse television in May with a bomb of a batting-practice home run, sending a Francisco Liriano pitch deep into the opposite-field upper deck in Toronto earlier this month, and recording the hardest-hit ball of the season against the Boston Red Sox Thursday, a 119.8 mile-per-hour single up the middle. Judge then topped himself Saturday, cranking a homer to left field in Yankee Stadium against the Baltimore Orioles that was measured at 121.1 miles-per-hour off the bat, the hardest-hit ball in the Statcast era (the last three seasons). Here’s video:

And a look at the speed and launch angle from MLB.com Yankees’ writer Bryan Hoch:

That’s just incredible. And it’s notable that Judge dominates the list of hardest-hit balls this year:

That was also Judge’s MLB-leading 19th home run of the season. Newsday has the whole collection here. It’s notable that Judge is hitting .323/.431/.657 this year, too, and has produced 3.5 Baseball Reference wins above replacement so far, tied with Mike Trout for the MLB lead. If he keeps hitting this way, the Yankees’ “Judge’s Chambers” special section in right field is going to look like an awfully smart investment on their part. And the “all rise” comments when he’s at bat may soon prove literal as well as figurative. Oh, and the Yankees won 16-3, so this was a pretty good day for them all around.

[Matt Clapp on Clippit]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.