Aaron Judge belts milestone HR as Yankees blast Houston

Aaron Judge recorded a milestone home run and capped a barrage against Justin Verlander as the visiting New York Yankees slugged their way to a 6-2 win over the Houston Astros Friday.

Judge drilled the first pitch of the top of the fifth inning 426 feet to center field, notching his 250th homer in his 810th game to become the fastest player in major league history to reach that milestone. Judge pounced on a slider for his 30th home run and joined D.J. LeMahieu, Jasson Domingez and Giancarlo Stanton as Yankees (66-69) who homered off Verlander.

LeMahieu ignited the fireworks by drilling the second pitch of the game over the right-field wall, his 14th home run providing a 1-0 lead. Verlander responded by inducing two groundouts but extended the inning by walking Stanton. That set the stage for Dominguez, the second-ranked prospect in the Yankees‘ farm system and, at 20 years and 206 days old, the youngest player to appear in a game for the Yankees since Jose Rijo (19 years, 54 days) on July 6, 1984.

Dominguez didn’t disappoint, lining an 0-1 fastball the opposite way and into the left-field seats to extend the lead to 3-0 with his first career hit. Verlander (10-7) continued to labor, stranding a runner in scoring position in the second inning before surrendering the first of two titanic blasts.

Two batters after Judge recorded a leadoff single in the third, Stanton crushed an 0-1 curveball 433 feet to left, his 21st home run lifting the Yankees to a 5-1 lead. Two innings later, Judge added to the carnage.

It marked the fifth time in his career that Verlander allowed four home runs in a start. He was charged with six runs on eight hits and one walk with three strikeouts over six innings, a drastic turn after he surrendered just three earned runs across three starts and 19 innings against the Yankees this season.

The Astros (77-59) managed only three hits off Yankees left-hander Carlos Rodon (2-4) en route to having their five-game winning streak snapped. Jose Abreu led off the second inning with his 12th home run and Kyle Tucker added an RBI double that plated Alex Bregman in the third.

Astros second baseman Jose Altuve departed in the second inning with a left leg contusion after fouling a pitch off his shin leading off the first.

—Field Level Media