SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Aaron Judge believes the New York Yankees went a little bit overboard in their preparation for baseball's new Automated Ball-Strike System.
Manager Aaron Boone admits he is a little “anal” about it all.
“We had too many meetings about it in my opinion,” said Judge, the two-time reigning AL MVP who grounded out in this first at-bat Saturday.
Yet Judge's timely, spot-on challenge during the sixth inning of a 3-0 victory Friday night
against San Francisco certainly paid off. He homered for the first time this season five pitches later with a two-run, 405-foot drive to left field after an 0-for-7 start to 2026 that included going 0 for 5 with four strikeouts Wednesday — the first hitless opening day of his career.
Paul Goldschmidt scored on the play after a double to start the rally.
Judge challenged what originally had been ruled strike two by plate umpire Chad Fairchild on an 86.1 mph slider from Robbie Ray in the sixth inning and had it overturned to a ball by the so-called robot umpire.
“I thought the call was going to stand so it was a close one there,” Judge said. “You get in a better count but I still have a job to do, especially with Goldy out there on second base to drive him in.”
New York was 2 for 3 in challenge opportunities through the first two games of the series, while the Giants were 1 for 2. Then Jazz Chisholm Jr.'s called third strike in the second against Tyler Mahle was confirmed when he challenged.
“I was kind of obsessive over it, so I wanted to talk about it a lot,” Boone said Saturday. “I was going up to individuals almost routinely after every one, ‘Hey, I really liked that one,' why, ‘I hated that one,’ why. At the end of spring I pulled up probably eight to 10 examples not only our games but some other games and talked through them, just trying to get our guys to inherently understand instinctively, in-the-moment situations and also whenever we can, which is easier said than done, is stripping the emotion out of it, which is going to happen at some point.”
New York's José Caballero lost the first challenge of the major league season during a season-opening 7-0 win over the Giants on Wednesday.
Boone believes the new system will be an asset for the Yankees, who had the second-lowest chase rate— or swings on pitches out of the zone — last year at 25.6% and just a fraction more than the Brewers, according to Sportradar.
“That's my expectation,” he said. “We've poured a lot into it. I feel like our team makeup should lend itself to this being a good thing for us and an advantage for us, but that's not a given either. We've got to continue to evolve with it and learn from it and hopefully it is something that is a strength.”
For Judge, this is an adjustment. He plans to pick his moments to tap his helmet and signal the 12 Hawk-Eye cameras to make the call.
“Weird,” he said, “it's part of the game, but you've got to get used to it. I'm a hitter, I've got to focus on hitting. I'm not going try to sit here and challenge every single one I think is close, but if there's a big spot where I think I've got a chance to flip the count I'm going to do it. I've still got to go up there and do my job as a hitter.”
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