Aaron Judge homers, hits 3 doubles as Yankees beat Pablo López

MINNEAPOLIS — It was just one pitch and one swing in a game filled with plenty of both. But anyone who saw it will surely never forget the moment.

It looks innocuous enough in the box score. Aaron Judge hit a solo home run off Twins starter Pablo López in the first inning of Wednesday’s 4-0 Yankees victory at Target Field. Judge does that a lot, after all. It was his 11th homer of the season, the 268th of his career.

But few of them have been as jaw-dropping as Wednesday night’s rocket. The ball left his bat at 113 mph and was projected to travel 467 feet by Statcast into the third deck beyond left field. The sound of bat meeting ball was followed by an audible gasp — a moment of near silence — before the Yankees fans in the crowd (and even many Twins fans) shook off their collective daze and roared in appreciation for the monumental blast.

“He felt a little oversized for the park,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “That’s cleaning out a good fastball there and leaving no doubts.”

López later explained that he wanted to get ahead with a fastball up and in, but he didn’t execute the location the way he had planned to.

“You want to get upper rail, but you know, we don’t see many dudes that tall, so when you’re going up, you better get it like up, higher than high,” López said. “Usually, most people are not that tall, so the targeting works a little different. So I learned a lesson there: With people that tall, high means higher than high.”

The home run was part of a 4-for-4 night for Judge that also included three doubles — his fifth multi-hit performance in his past 10 games. He’s gone 16-for-36 (.444) over that span, raising his batting average from .200 to .255. Judge also leads the Majors with 12 extra-base hits in May, three more than anyone else. But he refuses to say that he’s fully over his early-season struggles.

“We’re getting there,” Judge said. “Not there yet. Hopefully we get there when we’re talking in November.”

His manager was more philosophical in his assessment of Judge’s season trajectory.

“Hitting is hard, even for great ones. Even the guys that have the best of years and win MVPs, there’s still peaks and valleys,” Boone said. “I think it’s more just getting on time and recognizing pitches and getting your swing off. He’s done a great job of that here the last couple of weeks.”

Judge certainly left that impression with his first swing of the night. After the game, it was seemingly all anyone could talk about. For instance:

Yankees starter Marcus Stroman: “He’s hit that ball off of me before. It’s not a good feeling. But he’s special, man. And he’s locked in right now. He’s an incredibly hard AB for an opposing pitcher.”

López: “It looked like a Home Run Derby homer to me. I just turned around and saw the thing looked like that [makes a tiny circle with his fingers].”

Boone: “As soon as it was hit, myself included, it was like you want to get to a position where you don’t miss where it’s going to land. I even felt [Giancarlo Stanton] running up the steps to get into position to see it. That’s how that swing felt, right away, ‘Where’s this going to land?’”

Well, there was one person who didn’t seem comfortable discussing the moment.

“It happened so fast, man. I don’t even know what’s going through my head,” Judge said. “I’m just locked in on trying to take a good swing on a good pitch.”

Mission accomplished, for one night at least.