Aaron Judge trying to get 'locked in,' despite video game-like 100-game stretch

The New York Yankees played a baseball game on Friday night. Aaron Judge was in the lineup. Chances are, if the Yankees are playing and Judge is in the lineup, he's going to do something impactful. Sure enough, he led off the bottom of the sixth inning with a home run to give the Yankees an insurance run in their win over the Colorado Rockies. That home run gave the 32-year-old home runs in four straight games and in six of his last eight appearances. He has gone deep seven times in those eight games. It's his 49th home run of the season.

Normally, when a player goes deep seven times in eight games, he'd feel pretty good about himself and his swing. In Judge's case, though, he's still trying to get locked in.

You're telling me Judge has another level beyond what we've seen? I mean, sure, we've seen many players go on week-long tears, but this past week has been the norm for Judge since his slow start. This kind of comment coming from a player who has put up arguably the greatest 100-game stretch in MLB history is hilarious and frightening.

Aaron Judge gives pitchers nightmare material with frightening quote

Judge is batting .378 in his last 100 games entering Saturday, making him the first player with more than 45 home runs to be batting over .375 in a 100-game stretch.

Remember when Luis Arraez was getting a ton of attention last season for hitting nearly .400 for much of the first half? Well, Judge is hitting just 22 points below .400 in his last 100 games, and is doing so while providing historically great power production.

These are numbers you expect to see in MLB The Show. Since April 27, he's getting on base over 50 percent of the time and has a .835 slugging percentage. Not OPS, slugging percentage. For reference, a .835 OPS would be good for 20th in the majors among qualified hitters. Again, that's just his slugging percentage. He has a 1.340 OPS in his last 100 games, which would be over 300 points better than Juan Soto's full-season OPS of 1.032. Soto is second in the majors in OPS.

Judge being able to put this kind of a stretch together after how he started the year makes his level of play even more impressive.

It's easy to forget that the 32-year-old began the year slashing .178/.317/.356 with four home runs and 13 RBI in 27 games. How many times have we seen stretches like this one from the former MVP? Had he ever looked that bad for that long? Somehow, he went from that player who couldn't seem to do anything right, to one who is on a historic heater in an eye blink. That heater has lasted for nearly four months now, and has made him the clear-cut MVP favorite.

At this point, Judge rarely even sees pitches to hit. When he does see those pitches, he hits them over the fence. He has virtually no protection in the order since Soto hits in front of him, yet he still finds a way to hit home runs seemingly every game.

If this isn't Judge fully locked in, yikes. What would another level of Judge even look like? Would he hit .500 with home runs every other at-bat? All pitchers can realistically do is hope that this is Judge's peak. I mean, he can't actually be more locked in than he is now, right?