WATCH: Aaron Judge Ties Babe Ruth with 60th Home Run of 2022 Season
With the New York Yankees trailing 8-4 in the bottom of the ninth Tuesday night to the Pittsburgh Pirates, Aaron Judge became the third Yankees player ever to hit 60 home runs or more in a single season.
No other American League team has had a single player hit 60 or more home runs in a single-season. The most home runs hit by a non-Yankee in the American League is Jimmy Foxxx, who slugged 58 in 1938.
Judge is now just one home run away from tying the American League single-season record of 61 long balls, set by Yankees great Roger Maris in 1961. He is now tied with Yankees great Babe Ruth for the second-highest total in a single-season.
Ruth held the Major League single-season home run record for 40 years, before Maris edged him out in 1961.
Maris' mark has stood for 61 years in the American League, but it appears that it will not stand for very much longer.
Judge has 15 games remaining to pass Maris. He's now 13 home runs shy of tying the single-season Major League home run record of 73, set by San Francisco Giants left fielder Barry Bonds in 2001.
Though it seems unlikely that Judge will pass Bonds, he certainly looks as though he will pass Maris.
Judge has homered 60 times over 143 games this year. He's now on pace to finish the season with 66 home runs, which would match Chicago Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa for third on the single-season home run leaders list. Sosa hit 66 in 1998, but like Bonds and Mark McGwire — the only two other players with more home runs in a season than Maris — had his reputation tarnished by his usage of performance enhancing drugs.
Judge is on a trajectory to pass Maris, win the American League Triple Crown and record one of the single greatest seasons for a professional athlete, all without any known usage of banned substances.
The Yankees would go on to win by a score of 9-8, off a walk-off grand slam from Giancarlo Stanton.
