The Blue Jays were the ones chirping after the game.
The Yankees rival cast doubt on Aaron Judge’s claim that his look to the dugout was in response to teammates still complaining about the strike zone during a 7-4 win on Monday night.
Judge launched a mammoth home run to center field off Blue Jays reliever Jay Jackson, moments after SportsNet announcers first called attention to the sideways glance.
“When I came back to the dugout (one of the coaches) told me you’re going to be pissed when you see the video,” Jackson told the Toronto Sun. “He said they are tipping pitches.”
The at-bat took place in the eighth inning and the Blue Jays announcers had wondered if Judge’s looks were meant to see the signs from catcher Alejandro Kirk.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider was also suspicious.
The paper noted that Schneider was unusually late to his postgame media availability and presumed it was due to him reviewing Judge’s plate appearance.
“I saw it,” Schneider said. “Kind of odd that a hitter would be looking in that direction. He’s obviously looking in that direction for a reason and dive into it a little more tonight and tomorrow and make sure we’re doing everything we can to make ourselves susceptible to tendencies.
“But ya, it was kind of odd to see him looking over there right before a pitch came.”
In the same at-bat, Yankees manager Aaron Boone was ejected for arguing a low strike call.
Judge, who had homered previously in the game, said his Yankees teammates were still voicing their frustrations with the calls directed at home plate umpire Chris Vondrak.
“There was a lot of chirping from our dugout, which I really didn’t like in the situation where it’s a 6-0 game,” Judge said. “I know Boonie got tossed — I was trying to save Boonie by calling timeout, like, ‘Hold up here, let me work.’ I was trying to see who was chirping in the dugout. It’s 6-0. Boonie got tossed, let’s just go to work.”
It was the first of four games between the AL East foes.
“I’m not the caliber of hitter Aaron Judge is and never was, but he’s obviously looking somewhere besides the pitcher for a reason at that point in time in his at-bat,” Schneider said when pressed on the at-bat.
Jackson, a 35-year-old journeyman in his third appearance of the season, was tipped off to the buzz around the home run by his fiancée.
“I really haven’t seen hitters do that,” Jackson said. “I can’t say what he was doing. We’ll see what plays out from this and next time we’ll have a different game plan.
“I’m not going to say anything against any organization … but for him to be peaking over for that amount of time, it seemed like it wasn’t just a glance and re-adjusting your eyes to get back on the pitcher.”
