David Lennon: Cody Bellinger shows why he can take the lead in Aaron Judge's absence
Cody Bellinger of the Yankees follows through on his eighth-inning home run against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
History has taught us that winning without Aaron Judge is not something that comes easily to the Yankees. Subtracting a three-time MVP leaves a sizable hole, and on Sunday, for the better part of eight innings, Judge’s absence was as good an excuse as any for a brewing loss to the Red Sox.
Even with Judge gone, however, the Yankees have a few certified MVPs to spare. And one of those other three — Cody Bellinger — stepped up to hit the tiebreaking two-out homer in the eighth inning in what became a comfortable 6-1 victory before a sellout crowd of 46,144 in the Bronx.
Bellinger, who was named the 2019 National League MVP with the Dodgers, is right up there with Ben Rice as the most valuable Yankee through the first nine weeks of the season — something Judge has mentioned often whenever Bellinger’s game came up.
As far as position players go, Bellinger is the sort that can take the lead filling in for Judge. He’s a 10-year veteran and the team’s other true five-tool weapon.
“Obviously, Aaron being out is just such a huge loss,” Bellinger said. “Ultimately we all got to lean on each other. We still have a really talented team, we’ve got a lot of athletic guys and we can win in many different ways. We’re going to have to fight, and today was a good day to get going.”
On Sunday, some of those ways still involved Judge’s presence — or more specifically, his bat.
Jazz Chisholm Jr., a notorious bat-borrower, grabbed a piece of Judge’s lumber en route to the plate in the eighth and swatted a three-run homer that broke it open. Chisholm had whiffed in all three of his previous trips to the plate, but he hammered a fastball from lefty reliever Joe La Sorsa in his very first pitch with the Red Sox.
“I was swinging and missing when I thought I was hitting the ball,” Chisholm said. “So just to see if the bat would’ve changed [things]. Sometimes you need a little more weight and a little bit less on your swing.”
Chisholm already had been using Jose Caballero’s bat regularly — along with Giancarlo Stanton’s uniform pants — and this wasn’t the first time he grabbed one from Judge’s stash. The results have been mixed.
The good? Chisholm recalled homering in his second game as a Yankee with Judge’s bat. But the bad was really bad. Chisholm suffered an oblique tear last season on an overswing while wielding the heavier Judge model. He hit a triple, then missed five weeks with the injury.
“I think I used it in spring training earlier this year and almost ripped my oblique trying to swing hard with it again,” he said. “So I just figured go in there, keep it nice and compact.”
You can’t blame the Yankees for doing whatever they possibly can to make up for the missing Judge Factor. It’s going to take a village, whether that’s Cam Schlittler getting back on his Cy Young Award track Sunday with a solid 5 2⁄3 innings, Trent Grisham continuing his hot streak with three more hits (.375/.444/.571 in his last 15 games) or Paul Goldschmidt, yet another former MVP, giving the Yankees a 1-0 lead with his RBI single in the fifth off Red Sox starter Ranger Suarez.
This game just felt a bit more significant, given the rough week for the Yankees, who are 2-3 since Judge began spending his time in MRI tubes rather than the batting cage. After being diagnosed with a stress fracture of the first rib up near his right shoulder, he probably won’t be back until mid-to-late August, best-case scenario, and the Yankees can’t help but operate in the long shadow of their recovering captain.
“I’m already a little tired answering the question and we’re only a couple of days into this,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Look, we got really good players. They’re in a good place. Obviously, it makes it more challenging when you’re missing really key pieces. But we’re capable of playing really good baseball. We got grown-ups in the room for sure.”
Among the encouraging signs was Schlittler’s rebound from his previous glitch, when a dip in his fastball velocity raised some eyebrows. He said Sunday that a few mechanical tweaks in the past week served as a quick fix, and that appeared to restore the right numbers. His four-seamer averaged 97.5 mph Sunday — down slightly from his 97.7 mark for the season — but his sinker (98.0) and cutter (94.3) were above average.
Schlittler, who has a 1.87 ERA, joined Ron Guidry (1978) as the only two Yankee pitchers to have a sub-1.90 ERA and at least 85 strikeouts through their first 14 starts of a season.
Meanwhile, Bellinger should be well-equipped to guide the Yankees through this post-Judge wilderness. “I just try to lead by example, come in, perform to the best of my capabilities and just give it everything I got every day,” said Bellinger, whose ninth homer gave him nine RBIs in his last 11 games. “That’s how I kind of roll and I’m gonna try and continue to roll.”
Bellinger rolled them right past the Red Sox to split this weekend’s rain-abbreviated series. Keeping that momentum, however, is going to be harder with Judge on the shelf.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
