NEW YORK (AP) — Yankees captain Aaron Judge was booed by New York fans on his bobblehead day after he struck out for the fourth time in Saturday’s 2-0, 10-inning loss to the Tampa Bay Rays.
“I’ve heard worse and I’d probably be doing the same thing in their situation,” Judge said after his 10th career game with four or more strikeouts.
Judge is hitting .179 with three homers, 11 RBIs and a team-high 27 strikeouts.
“It’s still early,” Judge said. “It’s a long season but just missing the pitch. If I get a pitch in the zone, I got to capitalize on it because I don’t get many and usually that what’s it comes down – don’t miss your pitch when you get it – and take your walks when you’re not getting anything.”
Judge struck out in the first, fourth and sixth innings against Zach Eflin and in the ninth against Jason Adam. The last promoted the rough reaction from the sellout crowd of 47,629.
Judge said he feels fine. He didn’t play between March 10 and 20 during spring training because of an abdominal injury.
“I’ve had seasons where I’ve started off worse than this through my career,” Judge said. “I’ve had seasons where you start off hot and you always hit a rough patch where you hit about .150 in the whole month but it kind of gets mixed in there with the other 500 at-bats. It’s just you got to keep working, keep improving and you’ll get out of it.”
Judge’s predecessor as captain, Derek Jeter, heard boos for going hitless in 32 at-bats in 2004, Mariano Rivera was jeered for giving up a game-ending homer to Boston three games into the 2005 season.
“It’s a hard game,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We can go back and the history of time and great players go through a little funk. I’m not worried at all. It’s Aaron Judge.”
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