Aaron Judge becomes second-fastest to 200 career home runs in MLB

With a runner on first base and two outs, Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB) hit a home run to the right-center gap as the second designated hitter in the bottom of the second inning of a home game against the Kansas City Royals on Saturday. The New York Yankees were leading the game 2-0 against the opponent’s starting pitcher Jonathan Heasley.

With the 42nd homer of the season, Judge is leading the homerun race, followed by Yordan Alvarez with 30 home runs in second place in the American League and Kyle Schwarber with 32 home runs in second place in the overall MLB.

Judge’s latest homerun is his 200th career homer, which came in the 671st game since his MLB debut. Ryan Howard of the Philadelphia Phillies was the only player who hit 200 career homers in a fewer number of games in the history of the MLB. Howard who also holds the MLB record for the fastest 100th career homerun in his 325th game hit his 200th career homer in his 658th match.

“You never know what’s going to happen. So for me, I just got to keep working hard, keep my head down and do what I can to help this team win games,” Judge said after the game when asked about the possibility of hitting 60 homers in the season. As of Saturday, The New York Yankees, which won the game 8-2, had 69 wins and 33 losses in total and maintained its No. 1 position in the MLB with a winning rate of 0.676.


leper@donga.com