One mighty slugger is helping carry the Yankee offense.
The other is not.
While Giancarlo Stanton came up with another homer, Aaron Judge still doesn’t look like himself at the plate in another postseason.
And although there’s no denying Judge’s impact on Monday’s 5-2 win in Game 1 of the ALCS in The Bronx, he still hasn’t put his stamp on these playoffs.
He made a pair of fine running catches on Jose Ramirez liners into the gap, one to start the fourth and another to end the top of the sixth.
Both shots had an expected batting average of over .500, but ended up in Judge’s glove.
And in a game in which the Yankees generally seemed unable to come up with a clutch hit, despite having runners on base throughout the night, Judge walked and scored in a three-run third and drove in the team’s fourth run with a sacrifice fly in the fourth.
He hit another ball hard on a line out to right in the seventh.
But if you’re looking for a breakout game to snap Judge out of his postseason funk, this wasn’t it.
In five games during these playoffs, he has just a pair of hits — one a double — and is now 2-for-15 with an RBI and a slumping Austin Wells behind him.
Since his last postseason homer, Judge has now played nine games and gone 3-for-31 with just one extra-base hit.
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He’s been somewhat fortunate the Yankees knocked off Kansas City in four games and have now taken a lead in the ALCS over what looks to be an equally overmatched AL Central squad.
But the “MVP” chants from the Yankee faithful that accompany most Judge at-bats in The Bronx aren’t as loud as they were in the regular season or earlier in these playoffs.
Still, Judge has shown before he is capable of sudden turnarounds at the plate. After enduring a 16-game homerless streak that lasted from late August to early September, Judge homered in five consecutive games in the final week of the season.