Judge hits longest of year (473 feet!) in homestand full of deep drives

NEW YORK -- The Yankees just got their first true Judgian blast of the season.

Aaron Judge crushed a 115.7 mph, 473-foot home run to deep, deep, deep center field at Yankee Stadium in Thursday's series finale against the Astros -- tied with Mike Trout for the longest homer of the 2024 season.

• Box score

"Not a lot of people go to that place," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "Other than a few guys we've got who are capable of doing that."

The Yankees fell, 4-3, in the game, but they still put together a 5-1 homestand. They're 25-14, with the most wins of any American League team, as they hit the road to face the Rays and Twins. And if Judge is finally starting to crush balls like that, those other teams are in trouble.

Longest home runs of 2024
T-1) Aaron Judge: 473 feet -- May 9 vs. HOU
T-1) Mike Trout: 473 feet -- April 1 vs. MIA
3) Shohei Ohtani: 464 feet -- May 5 vs. ATL
T-4) Yordan Alvarez: 461 feet -- April 27 vs. COL
T-4) Yordan Alvarez: 461 feet -- April 27 vs. COL
T-4) Ketel Marte: 461 feet -- April 6 vs. ATL

Judge's home run landed in the seats above and just to the left of Monument Park. It was his ninth home run of the season, tied with Juan Soto for the Yankees’ team lead. But this was his biggest swing of 2024. Judge's previous longest home run of the year was 450 feet.

"Judgy's special, man. Judgy's special," said Yankees starter Marcus Stroman. "And I feel like he's even more special when you put him in a lineup where he has all these guys around him. He's not even hot yet."

Stroman knows a thing or two about Judgian blasts. When he was on the Blue Jays, he gave up the longest home run of Judge's career -- a 496-foot homer to the very top of Yankee Stadium's left-center-field bleachers on Sept. 30, 2017, Judge's 52nd and final home run of his AL rookie record-setting campaign. Stroman hasn't forgotten that one.

"Oof. When I let 'em up, I let 'em up," Stroman said. "I remember that homer he hit against me, man. That was the furthest ball, for sure, that was ever hit against me. I think that was the longest of his career, right? Yeah. Still didn't come down, you know?"

Thursday's home run was "only" 473 feet, not 496, but when Judge goes back and watches it later, he'll see the third-longest home run of his career, the fifth-longest home run hit at Yankee Stadium since Statcast began tracking in 2015 and the second-longest home run to center field in the Bronx. Only Giancarlo Stanton's 485-footer to nearly the same location last April 2 went longer.

Longest home runs at Yankee Stadium
Since Statcast started tracking in 2015
1) Aaron Judge: 496 feet -- Sept. 30, 2017 vs. TOR
2) Aaron Judge: 495 feet -- June 11, 2017 vs. BAL
3) Giancarlo Stanton: 485 feet -- April 2, 2023 vs. SF
4) Gary Sánchez: 481 feet -- June 21, 2019 vs. HOU
T-5) Aaron Judge: 473 feet -- May 9, 2024 vs. HOU
T-5) Gary Sánchez: 473 feet -- Sept. 5, 2022 vs. NYY (for MIN)

"I haven't looked at it yet. I hit it, and I just run the bases," Judge said. "But we'll take a look, we'll take a look."

Judge's 473-footer came in the same series that Stanton hit the two hardest home runs of the season -- in back-to-back games.

Stanton hit a 118.8 mph home run in the series opener against Houston on Tuesday … then surpassed himself with a 119.9 mph homer on Wednesday.

There were a lot of big swings by the Yankees on this homestand, not just the Judgian and Stantonian blasts.

Anthony Volpe, who'd cooled off following his red-hot start to the year, found his stroke with a pair of homers to the right-field porch against Houston, one off Astros ace Justin Verlander in the series opener and another on Thursday. Anthony Rizzo hit a clutch three-run shot to lift the Yankees to one of their wins over the Tigers. Soto, who continues to look like the best hitter in the league, belted a 440-foot opposite-field shot off Verlander that clanged off the back wall above the left-center-field bullpen.

So even though the Yankees missed out on their chance to sweep the seven-game season series against one of their biggest rivals in the Astros, they finished their homestand in a much better spot than they started it -- having just lost three of four to the division-rival Orioles in a clash of the top two teams in the AL East.

"Guys are just getting confident with where they're at, and we've just got to keep that rolling," Judge said. "That was an impressive homestand for a lot of guys."