Crosstown rivals in awe of mighty Judge

This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

NEW YORK – The door of the visiting manager’s office at Yankee Stadium had been locked for the evening, and Carlos Mendoza’s knuckles were wrapped around a steering wheel late on Saturday, the Mets manager silently replaying pitch sequences as he battled traffic somewhere on the Grand Central Parkway.

Hours earlier, Mendoza’s team had scored a hard-fought Subway Series triumph over their crosstown rivals, somehow keeping Aaron Judge’s bat quiet in the process. The manager chuckled softly to no one in particular, unable to shake the lingering feeling that his pitchers had gotten away with something.

“Honestly, I went back and I said, ‘Man, we gave him way too many good pitches to hit,’” Mendoza told MLB.com during batting practice on Sunday. “It was one of those rare days where he was human. You don’t see that too much, not when a guy is hitting [over] .400.”

In the Yankees’ dugout, Judge’s consistency inspires equal parts awe and anticipation – a two-time American League Most Valuable Player seemingly on a mission for a third, Judge ranks second in the Majors in home runs (15) and RBIs (41) and leads MLB in batting average (.401) and expectations (sky-high).

Across the tracks, the viewpoint is more cautious. Mets players practically duck behind dugout railings when the game’s most recognizable 6-foot-7 monster marches toward home plate. Mendoza said the quiet part out loud: “Even before he gets to the on-deck circle, you know he’s coming up -- and it’s not a good feeling.”

“He’s controlling the strike zone better than anybody, at an elite level,” Mendoza adds. “He has a really good understanding of the game. Teams don’t want to pitch to him. He’s going to take his walks and trust his teammates. And I think the biggest thing is how humble he still is; he’s still the same guy I met in the Minor Leagues.”

Luis Torrens would agree. As a top prospect in the Yankees organization, Torrens shared a clubhouse with Judge in Charleston, S.C., where he remembers a gentle giant filling the room. Even in his early 20s, Judge would clap a meaty paw upon a teammate’s shoulder and invite them for dinner on the town, flashing a gap-toothed grin that has since been tightened for Madison Avenue.

Someday, old-timers will look back on hazy afternoons filling the seats of Charleston’s Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park, insisting they always knew the Judge kid would make it.

Torrens knows the truth. No one was forecasting that version of Judge -- air-dropped fresh out of Fresno State’s hallways -- to develop into arguably the greatest right-handed hitter of his generation.

Sure, the power would flash if he barreled a ball just right. But Cooperstown? Nah, that never came up.

It does now.

“You saw he was huge and strong. You thought he was going to take advantage of that,” Torrens said, suggesting Judge could have steamrolled any room without protest. “But he was completely the opposite guy. He wasn’t quiet, but he tried to help people a lot and take care of you. He was on your side.”

Torrens squatted behind home plate during each of Judge’s five hitless at-bats, calling the pitches that produced three strikeouts.

Peering through the bars of his mask – Judge’s socks yanked high, eye black glistening with perspiration, fresh wad of Dubble Bubble being gnawed – Torrens thought: “It’s going to be a tough at-bat.”

“When you go against one of the best players in the game, it’s a challenge, for sure,” the catcher said. “There’s not one secret: you can’t just throw one pitch. You try to mix everything, read swings, try to have a little bit of luck too. You just hope he’s not going to do damage on any pitch.”

Behind the scenes, within meetings where pitchers, catchers and coaches dissect swings like frogs in a high school science class, Judge’s presence is felt long before he hoists his 35-inch, 33-ounce Chandler bat.

Torrens hints at the tone of those chats: “We say enough. Sometimes, with those types of hitters, you don’t try to get too deep. Maybe we just try to avoid him and pitch to the guy behind him. It’s not a secret. He’s such a good hitter.”

In his role as the Mets’ pitching coach since the 2020 season, Jeremy Hefner has eyed Judge’s development closely. Judge could have peaked in 2022, when he belted 62 home runs to break Roger Maris’ single-season home run record and claimed MVP No. 1.

But he one-upped himself in ’24; mechanical changes producing a few less homers (58), but more RBIs, walks, a more robust triple-slash line. And now? Good luck.

“Early on in his career, he swung and missed a lot, especially down and away,” Hefner said. “Fastballs down and away, sliders, changeups, anything you could get down and away from him. It was a pretty big hole. He’s closed that hole. There’s no significant miss underneath the zone, and a lot of power down in the zone.

“He has historically been very good at not swinging at those fastballs that are up above the zone to him. He’s made you come down, and he’s handled that. There’s some space if you can get the ball up there and you have the right fastball to do it, but that’s few and far between. There’s only a couple of guys on our team that can actually do it.”

No wonder Mendoza’s message to his staff was simple and clear: “Don’t let him beat you.”

He’ll likely repeat that refrain when the Subway Series resumes July 4-6 at Citi Field. The choice to raise four fingers and send Judge to first base may not thrill either fan base, but it sure beats fishing a ball out of the seats.

“I’ll let the game dictate,” Mendoza said. “If we can pitch to him, we will.”