Yanks can't hold on after Judge sends one to most remote part of Fenway

BOSTON -- Squeezing Fenway Park into the confines of an existing 1912-era street grid necessitated many unique quirks, like the 37-foot-tall Green Monster that looms over left field. It also meant that there would be areas where baseballs were not expected to land -- at least, not until Aaron Judge arrived.

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The Yankees’ superstar blasted a drive to a part of Fenway where longtime Bostonians swear they haven’t seen many soar before, a monstrous three-run drive off Red Sox reliever Zack Kelly. It was a prelude to an all-too-familiar outcome for the visitors, who coughed up the advantage in a 9-7 loss on Friday, the club’s 23rd in its past 33 games.

“It just gave us a lead, but you never know, especially in this park,” Judge said. “No lead is ever really safe.”

Austin Wells followed Judge’s seventh-inning homer with one of his own, building a three-run lead at the time, but the Red Sox weren’t done. Ceddanne Rafaela hit a two-run homer off Luke Weaver in the home half of the frame; one of the Yanks’ more reliable relievers this season, Weaver’s command eluded him in the eighth, leaving a two-on, one-out mess for Clay Holmes.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone asked Holmes for a five-out save, but the lead lasted two pitches. Wilyer Abreu came off the bench to deliver a game-tying double, and Masataka Yoshida followed by hammering a two-run single, saddling Holmes with his seventh blown save in 28 chances, tied for the Major League lead.

“It’s tough. Obviously, we’re not playing our best stretch,” Holmes said. “I think everybody wants to be the guy who comes in. We all want the ball in those situations, to be the guy to pick up our teammates. I wasn’t able to get it done tonight.”

So as the story has gone too frequently, the Yankees were left to marvel at a Judge accomplishment in a losing effort.

“It feels like, when we hit, we don’t pitch,” said Nestor Cortes, who allowed four runs on nine hits and two walks in 4 2/3 innings. “When we pitch, we don’t hit. If I had the answer for you, I would tell the team and make it work. We need to turn it around.”

There were chants of “M-V-P!” heard after Judge’s homer, which cleared not only the center-field wall but also the bleachers’ seating area, fading into the night underneath the video scoreboard.

Judge’s Major League-leading 36th home run traveled a Statcast-calculated 470 feet; he said he hadn’t seen a ball hit up there before, not even in batting practice.

“I haven’t. I try not to watch them, though,” he said. “I had to check the replay to see where it went. I was just happy it gave us three runs.”

Judge’s homer was the fourth longest hit at Fenway Park since Statcast tracking became available in 2015, behind Miguel Sano on Aug. 25, 2021 (495 feet), Gary Sanchez on Oct. 6, 2018 (479 feet) and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on June 24, 2024 (471 feet).

“I just know that when he squared it up, I was like, ‘That’s as clean as you can hit a baseball,’” Boone said.

It was the fifth longest home run of Judge’s career, according to Statcast, and his second longest of the season behind a 473-footer on May 9 against the Astros. Judge and the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani are the only players with multiple homers of 470 or more feet this season.

Upon watching the replay, Judge said, “It was cool seeing the excitement out of the team, giving us the lead there. That’s usually what I like looking at the most.”

From the Red Sox’s dugout, manager Alex Cora said he thought about Manny Ramírez.

“The big boy [Judge], he is who he is. He’s amazing,” Cora said. “I haven’t seen a guy hit a ball there since 2007, back in the day. Manny used to live up there. That was impressive.”

For locals with a few more gray hairs, Judge’s drive brought to mind a storied Jim Rice blast off the Royals’ Steve Busby on July 18, 1975. Rice’s homer was said to have exited Fenway somewhere near the top of the flagpole beyond center field, and Busby would later joke that “it probably ended up on the Mass Pike.”

Alas, no Statcast measurements (or reports of traffic accidents) exist for Rice’s homer, but future generations from both halves of this historic rivalry will no doubt remember Judge’s. At least on the Yankees’ side, they’ll wish that it could have come in a victory -- an outcome that has been in short supply for the last month-plus.

“A loss is a loss,” Judge said. “If we lose by 15, or lose by one, or lose by two like that … we’ve just got to show up tomorrow.”