Aaron Judge’s lack of clutch gene is both very real and a complete lie

It's not an exaggeration to say that Aaron Judge is off to one of the hottest starts by a hitter in baseball history. The New York Yankees outfielder leads the Majors in hits, RBI, batting average, OBP and OPS, but somehow that's underselling it; extended to a full season, his 242 OPS+ would be the highest post-integration number the league has seen outside of Barry Bonds at the turn of the millennium.

And yet, the response from baseball fans writ large to Judge's season so far has been ... well, if not boredom exactly, then at least somewhat muted. This is partly because Judge plays for the Yankees, the team that every non-Yankees fan (justifiably) loves to hate. But there's also a sense in which Judge has become the victim of his own sky-high expectations. We know that Judge is a spectacular hitter; he's been one for years now. But if he wants the world to view that excellence with anything more than a shrug, he's going to have to check the one box remaining on his resume — and bury the skepticism that continues to dog him even amid this historic run.

That skepticism reared its head again on Monday, when Judge came up to bat as the tying run with two outs in the ninth inning against the Cleveland Guardians. The outfielder struck out against Cleveland reliever Cade Smith to end the game, and you could hear the narrative machine kicking into overdrive once again: There goes No. 99, failing to deliver in the clutch again.

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Aaron Judge won't outrun his reputation until he delivers in October

As if Judge or the Yankees needed a reminder, Monday's loss provided one: Respect is, ultimately, earned on the biggest stage, and Judge's failures in the playoffs are going to define his legacy until he overcomes them.

Ironically enough, Bonds is the perfect example here. He had a checkered postseason history of his own for the majority of his career, across trips with both the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants. But his run in the 2002 playoffs is the stuff of legend: Bonds slashed a preposterous .356/.581/.978 with eight homers while getting the Giants to within one win of a World Series title, and while San Francisco eventually let that title slip through its grasp, Bonds' individual legacy was secure.

Judge is still waiting for his own version of that performance. To be clear, his reputation as a choke artist is more than a little unfair: He has a career .968 OPS across 631 career plate appearances in late and close situations, per Baseball-Reference, and his high leverage numbers are nearly identical .265/.409/.552, .961 OPS). In the aggregate, Judge has been a very good clutch hitter, with plenty of big swings to his credit.

Of course, most of those swings have come in the regular season, and therein lies the problem. It doesn't matter how eye-popping Judge's numbers are, or how many wins he propels the Yankees to from April through September. His postseason struggles can't be waived away, and as long as they linger, it's going to be the only thing that anyone outside of the tristate area wants to talk about.