Aaron Judge: Yankees 'Should Have Trump Around More Often' After 9-3 Win Over Tigers
Judge homered twice as President Donald Trump attended the Yankees' Sept. 11 game at Yankee Stadium, a meeting the outfielder said boosted team confidence
New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge said the presence of President Donald Trump at Yankee Stadium helped give the team "confidence" in Thursday’s 9-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers, a game played on the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Judge went 3-for-4 with a pair of solo home runs in the win, his 45th and 46th of the season, and credited the pregame meeting with Trump for energizing the clubhouse. "We put on a show. He came in here and told us we were going to win, so I think that gave everybody the confidence in the room to go out there and do it," Judge said, according to NJ Advance Media. "But I guess we gotta have him around more often when we go out there and score that many runs and do something like that."
The Yankees salvaged the three-game series after dropping the first two games to Detroit. Giancarlo Stanton also homered for New York in the April contest, and the team capitalized on timely hitting to pull away. The Tigers remain ahead of the Yankees in the standings; Detroit entered the game 84-63 while New York improved to 81-65.
Judge’s two home runs on Thursday enhanced an MVP-caliber season in which he is batting .322 with 100 RBIs, 11 stolen bases and 46 home runs. The two-time American League Most Valuable Player is considered one of the leading candidates to win a third award this year.
Trump, who met with the Yankees in the locker room before the game, commented on his encounter with Judge during a Friday appearance on Fox & Friends. "I said, ‘You gotta win this game, you're gonna make me look bad if you don’t win this game,’ and they were great and Aaron Judge, he is some player, but he is some strong guy," Trump said. "He has the biggest forearms — you know I’ve seen weightlifters — I’ve never seen arms this big. And he’s a fantastic person too, that’s great. He got up, hit two home runs, a single."
The game took place at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 11, with the team and fans marking the anniversary of the 2001 attacks. Photographs from the pregame meeting show Trump with members of the Yankees in the clubhouse; the White House visit preceded the club’s return to the field.
New York heads into a pivotal series against the Boston Red Sox beginning Friday night, a matchup that figures to influence final playoff seeding. Detroit begins a series in Miami on Friday.
The Yankees will look to carry the momentum from Judge’s performance as they pursue postseason positioning in the closing weeks of the regular season. Judge’s remarks about the president’s effect on the team underscored the heightened attention surrounding the club as it competes for playoff berths.