Oct. 9 – KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Two great players for the Yankees and Royals in the American League Division Series, Aaron Judge of New York and Bobby Witt Jr. of the Kansas City Royals, have not yet taken the field.
Judge and Witt are likely to be 1-2 in this year’s AL MVP voting, and the duo combined to go 1 for 17 in two games at Yankee Stadium between the Yankees and Royals.
Asked if he wanted to keep Judge a secret, Royals manager Matt Quatraro said he expects things to be different when the best-of-five series resumes Wednesday night with a one-win scenario.
“You can’t take it lightly (and say): ‘Oh, we got him.’ None of that,” Quatraro said before the team’s off-day practice Tuesday.
After dominating the regular season, Judge started the postseason 1-for-7 with four strikeouts. In Game 2 on Monday, he hit an infield single and drew a walk as the Royals won 4-2.
During the regular season, Judge batted .322, led the American League with 58 home runs and 144 RBIs, and had an on-base percentage of .458 and a slugging percentage of .701. The only other people to reach at least those numbers in a season were Hall of Famers Babe Ruth (1921 and 1927) and Jimmie Foxx (1932).
“He’s one of, if not the best hitters in the game,” Quatraro said. “One of the best hitters of the last decade. We worked hard on him and we have to continue to do that.”
Quatraro said the same would be true for the Yankees against Witt, who led the league with a .332 batting average, combined with a .389 on-base percentage, .588 slugging percentage, 31 stolen bases and superb defense at shortstop to be the favorite for MVP.
In a two-game sweep of the AL Wild Card Series against the Baltimore Orioles, Witt had three hits in nine at-bats, but had no hits in 10 at-bats against the Yankees, with 4 strikeouts. However, when he caught the ball, he stung the ball, and Quattro noticed how many full counts Witt took before extending his strike zone and getting the ball out of the zone.
“If these were on-base hits, we’d talk about how well he sees the ball, how he gets on base, how he can steal some bases, that kind of stuff,” Quatraro said.
The Royals are hitting .282/.325/.366 in two games against the Yankees.
“It’s really hard to hit the ball, and when you’re a guy like Bobby and everybody’s putting pressure on you all the time, that’s when you’re at your best,” Quatraro said.
Judge’s struggles in the postseason went beyond just a few tough games. He continued a personal trend by going 11 for 77 with 29 strikeouts in 19 postseason games through early October 2020.
“If I don’t get to 1,000, I feel bad,” he said.
The judge also stressed that he was not taking any additional mental burden.
“This isn’t really an attempt to pressure anybody,” Judge said. “It’s the same game we’ve been playing all year.”
The Royals will field right-hander Seth Lugo. Lugo was named to the American League All-Star team this year and went 16-9 with a 3.00 ERA in 33 starts. He gave up four runs in seven innings in a loss to New York on June 10, but then upset the Yankees by striking out 10 in seven innings on September 10.
Lugo cautioned against placing too much emphasis on what happened that day.
“A month ago, that was a long time,” Lugo said. “It’s all about today, not yesterday or tomorrow.”
Lugo earned a no-decision in Game 2 of the wild-card series against Baltimore, allowing one run in 4 1/3 innings. In 14 career games (four starts) against the Yankees, he has a 5-2 record with a 2.55 ERA.
Witt and the Royals will face right-hander Clarke Schmidt, who went 5-5 with a 2.85 ERA and 93 strikeouts in 16 regular season starts.
In four career games (two starts) against Kansas City, Schmidt is 2-0 with a 3.29 ERA. He will start in the playoffs for the first time in his career.
——David Brown, Field Level Media
