Yankees' 2024 duo trying to match M&M Boys' feat of '61
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Only on a team with someone like Aaron Judge having the kind of season he¡¯s having -- and he¡¯s pretty much having the kind of season he did two years ago when he hit 62 -- would Juan Soto even be considered the Other Guy. Or wingman, or sidekick, or co-star in the buddy movie in which No. 99 and No. 22 are currently starring in with the Yankees.
Judge is having another season for the ages and is the MVP of the sport right now, even with Soto hitting in front of him, even with what Shohei Ohtani is doing for the Dodgers and Bobby Witt Jr. is doing for the Royals -- because you can¡¯t forget about Witt, the kid shortstop who has more RBIs than either Ohtani or Soto and more of a batting average (.349) than anybody.
But it is Soto, who won¡¯t turn 26 until October (Witt turned 24 in June, in comparison), who has come to New York and been even more than the Yankees thought he would be -- if that is possible -- and is quietly giving his new team a chance to see something that only the ¡¯61 Yankees have ever seen:
Two players on the same team hitting 50 home runs, or more, in a season.
Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle did that in their home run summer of ¡¯61. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig never did. This is still just a dream, of course, with just 40 games left in the Yankees¡¯ season. Still, it¡¯s not a completely crazy one that Judge and Soto might be able to do it, not the way both of them are going.
Judge is already at 43, and he just got to 300 career home runs faster than anybody in baseball history. But Soto, who hit three homers in a game against the White Sox the other night, is at 34 homers going into the weekend. He doesn¡¯t seem to be going anywhere, nor is that short right-field wall at Yankee Stadium the last time anybody checked.
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Going into the weekend, Soto had hit six homers in his past seven games, seven in his last 15 and 13 in his last 30. Say he keeps up that pace for the next 30 games and plays in every game. That gets him to 47 with 10 games left in the regular season, one in which the Yankees will likely be grinding against the Orioles until the very end to see who¡¯s going to end up winning the AL East.
And if he gets that far, with that many home runs, how crazy is it that he has a finishing kick and hits three homers in a week the way he just did with the division on the line? A dream for Yankees fans, sure. But not exactly an impossible one.
Soto and Judge, as you might expect, really have turned into a buddy movie, with the way they interact with each other and the things they say about each other. Here¡¯s what Judge said about Soto after he hit his three against the White Sox:
¡°That¡¯s why he¡¯s the greatest hitter in the game. You leave a pitch in the zone, he¡¯ll do damage. But if you don¡¯t throw it to him, he¡¯ll let the next guy up do his thing.¡±
The next guy up being him. No. 99. The guy who has set himself up, if he stays healthy, to make a run at 60 again.
And here is what Soto said about Judge the other night in Chicago:
¡°I call him the greatest hitter in the world. He makes my job easier.¡±
Judge has 43 homers, 110 RBIs, an on-base percentage of .467, a slugging percentage of .707, an OPS of 1.174, a .333 batting average and 102 walks. Soto, still operating in the big guy¡¯s shadow even with the season he¡¯s having, has an OBP of .438, slugging of .615, a .307 average, those 34 homers and 87 RBIs and 102 walks of his own. Ohtani, over on the other coast, perhaps on his way to having his best offensive season overall, has hit just three more homers than Soto and has 86 RBIs to Soto¡¯s 87.
It is why Soto might very well be setting himself up to get a free-agent contract at least as big as the $700 million contract Ohtani got from the Dodgers when he entered free agency after last season. It is worth noting here than Soto is more than four years younger than Ohtani is.
That is a conversation for down the road. For now, we do continue to see a 1-2 punch that absolutely has put Judge and Soto into the conversation with Ruth and Gehrig, Maris and Mantle, still the only two pair of sluggers to have ever hit more than 40 homers in the same Yankees season -- something completely in reach for Soto with exactly 40 games left.
¡°I can¡¯t imagine a tandem being more dominant than they¡¯ve been all season long,¡± Aaron Boone said.
Not right now. Not in this Yankees season. To paraphrase the old baseball writer, Dr. Seuss: Oh, the places they might go.