Alex Rodriguez Blasts Yankees For Batting Aaron Judge Lead-off
The man who led MLB in home runs is batting lead-off. It never made a lick of sense to me but now someone who is way more famous in the game is echoing this sentiment. Why is Aaron Judge batting lead-off after hitting 62 home runs? Don’t you want guys getting on base in front of him? Well, Alex Rodriguez BLASTED Aaron Boone in the Yankees for their lineup decisions.
“As far as Aaron Judge, this is gimmicky baseball,” A-Rod said during the Fox postgame show alongside Kevin Burkhardt and Hall of Famers Frank Thomas and David Ortiz. “You cannot let your best player, your best hitter, hitting first. Babe Ruth didn’t do it. Barry Bonds didn’t do it. Frank didn’t do it. This guy [Ortiz] didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. It doesn’t exist. The reason why, is you want to protect [him]. Like, you play chess, it’s like the queen on the chess board.
“You want to put the best two hitters in front, and the best two hitters behind, and protect. The Yankees are putting the worst two hitters – the eighth and ninth hitter – and it puts an enormous amount of pressure. You want him to come up in that first at-bat and be very relaxed, see 12 or 14 pitches like I used to with [Derek] Jeter and [Johnny] Damon and [Mark] Teixeira, and maybe pop a three-run homer. It’s ridiculous that this guy is hitting leadoff, and it’s a mistake. I don’t know who’s doing it, [Aaron] Boone or [Brian] Cashman, but somebody has to change that immediately.”
Batting Judge lead-off maybe made sense when the division was locked up and the sole focus was about the AL home run chase. Batting Judge lead off in the playoffs? Yeah, I don’t get it. Thus far during the postseason, Judge is 0-for-8 with seven strikeouts. If the Yankees lose this series to the Guardians, Aaron Boone is going to get asked that question.
