Yankees might have an Aaron Judge playoff problem
originally appeared on The Sporting News

There's pretty much no disputing that Aaron Judge is one of the greatest right-handed hitters to ever step on a baseball diamond.

But there's also something different about him in the postseason.

On some nights, it can fly under the radar. Thursday was one of those nights.

The New York Yankees eliminated the Boston Red Sox behind an exquisite pitching performance from Cam Schlittler.

But in a winner-take-all game, Judge was 0-for-3.

He's a career .212 hitter in the playoffs with a well-below-career-average .768 OPS.

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That sample size is getting bigger by the game, too. It's up to 61 games. If Judge was hitting .212 after 61 games of a regular season, it'd feel like something was horribly wrong.

Now to be fair to Judge, these games are split apart.

And to be even more fair, teams chase the best matchups and use their best pitchers as much as humanly possible in the playoffs. A guy like Judge is going to get exactly zero at bats that are even slightly easy in the playoffs.

But that's been true for many of the game's great hitters, and a lot of them are great postseason performers.

For whatever reason, up until this point, that hasn't been true for Judge.

His career isn't over. The book isn't closed.

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Dodgers legend Clayton Kershaw had a bunch of bad postseason pitching outings in a row before he figured it out.

Judge can still figure it out, too.

The Yankees would have to win 11 more postseason games to win their first World Series since 2009. To do that, they'll need Judge to figure it out in a hurry.

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