While the Chicago Cubs may be struggling through 2024, that does not stop the rest of the league from continuing. Specifically, the New York Yankees are well on their way to a playoff run, hoping to end a 25-year drought. Leading the way for them is slugging outfielder Aaron Judge.
Judge leads all of baseball with 31 home runs, 82 runs batted in, a slugging percentage of .708, and an OPS of 1.104. To compare, Christopher Morel leads the Cubs with 15 home runs and 45 runs batted in. Morel is also batting .195, while Judge has an average of .316. He is executing in all phases of the game.
The best that the Cubs have as far as putting the ball over the fence and bringing runners in is about half as good as what Judge has been for the Yankees. The Yankees also have the fourth-best record in baseball and are 22 games above .500, well on their way to the playoffs. It’s incredible what investing in proven, excellent talent can do for a top-market team. It truly makes you wonder.
But all credit has to be given to Judge. He’s hitting home runs and bringing in the runners on base in front of him. He had an incredible June, specifically with bringing runners in. He just accomplished something in one calendar month that had not been done since 1998. Just the year should tell you exactly who we’re talking about.
In the month of June, Yankees slugger Aaron Judge drove in 37 runners. Driving in that many runs in a month had not been done in 26 years. In 1998, Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa drove in 40 runs in June of 1998. If you’re a Cubs fan or a baseball fan in general, you’ll remember that Sosa was a key contributor in making the summer of ’98 one for the ages.
Sammy Sosa hit a franchise-record 66 home runs in 1998, only second to MLB history’s best 70 hit by Mark McGwire. However, Sosa was the leader in runs batted in, driving in 158 runs that year for the Cubs. McGwire’s home run record lasted only three years because Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2021.
Only Manny Ramirez has bested Sosa’s RBI numbers since 1998, when he drove in 165 in 1999. Another Cubs legend, Hack Wilson, holds the record with 191 runs batted in during the 1930 season. Judge is on pace to be around 160 in 2024.
The Cubs will need someone to step up and have a 40 RBI month of their own if they hope to save the 2024 season. We are past the halfway point, and the Cubs are last in the division and have the third-worst record in the National League. 40 RBIs would help, but it also may be too late to turn it around. Not even Aaron Judge could save them now.
