Aaron Judge has officially arrived in the World Series.
After the New York Yankees' bats woke up to score 11 runs in a must-win Game 4, their MVP kept things rolling in the first inning of Game 5 on Wednesday night.
Much has been made of Judge's post-season struggles this October, as the 32-year-old slugger has disappointed to the tune of a .609 OPS in these playoffs and has only recorded two singles in the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
But after Gerrit Cole shut down the top of the Dodgers order, Judge finally broke through. He ripped a no-doubt first-pitch homer off Los Angeles starter Jack Flaherty, sending Yankee Stadium into a frenzy with the moment the New York faithful has been waiting for.
Flaherty offered up a middle-middle fastball, and for the first time in this Fall Classic, Judge made the Dodgers pay. The ball came off his bat at 108.9 m.p.h. and travelled 403 feet into the night.
It wasn't the Yankees' only big swing of the inning, as four pitches later, cleanup hitter Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit a home run of his own to put an exclamation mark on the three-run first.
According to MLB Stats, it is the fifth time the Yankees have hit back-to-back homers in the World Series. The last time it happened was in Game 5 of the 1977 World Series when Thurman Munson and Reggie Jackson did so at Dodger Stadium.
Judge led Major League Baseball with 58 home runs and 144 RBIs in the regular season, so if the 2022 AL MVP can start to get hot, the Yankees will start to feel a lot better about potentially completing a historic comeback in this much-anticipated World Series.
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