Aaron Judge's May hot streak is setting records and the month isn't even over yet

Aaron Judge got off to one of the slower starts in his big-league career to begin 2024. At the end of April, the Yankees' slugger was slashing .207/.340/.414 with a mediocre OPS just above .750. These numbers were incredibly unacceptable for one of the games best hitters.

But baseball continues to be a game of hot stretches and cold stretches and Judge is no exception to that rule. He has caught fire during the month of May, terrorizing opposing pitchers day in and day out.

Both the counting statistics and the advanced analytics support the sluggers incredible month. He's not getting lucky or blooping hits in. He's hitting balls hard and getting hot at the right time.

Aaron Judge's incredible month of May includes 25 barrels with eight games remaining

MLB and Statcast define a barrel as "The Barrel classification is assigned to batted-ball events whose comparable hit types (in terms of exit velocity and launch angle) have led to a minimum .500 batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage since Statcast was implemented Major League wide in 2015."

So far in May, Aaron Judge has recorded 25 "barrels", good for the most barrels in a single month in the Statcast era.

Yankees still have eight games remaining in the month for Judge to add to that total.

If you're not a fan of these new school terms, I've got you covered with some other traditional statistics as well.

In the month of May, Judge has a gaudy OPS of over 1.300. He's slugged eight homers in the month while driving in 16 runs. He's done all this while being walked 18 times, seemingly being pitched around quite often.

This month has seen his average raise from .200 to .268, his OPS rise from .731 to .990 and his OBP rise from .331 to an incredible .405.

The slugger is quickly reminding baseball fans that he's still one of the best players in the game, despite a slow start to the year. The MVP race resides in New York between Judge and his fellow Yankee outfielder Juan Soto.

Judge is almost certainly going to named the AL Player of the Month for May, for good reason. The slugger is just starting to heat up and if this can continue, he could have his eyes on another 50-homer season.