SAN FRANCISCO — Aaron Judge walked to the plate for his first at-bat at Oracle Park on Friday night and was met with a heavy dose of boos.
By the end of the night, he had perfected the role of the villain.
Playing the team he grew up rooting for, and the one he left at the altar in free agency to remain in pinstripes, Judge lived up to the moment by delivering a pair of home runs to lift the Yankees to a 6-2 win over the Giants in front of 35,018 mostly agitated fans.
Judge crushed a three-run shot to left field in the third inning to give the Yankees (40-19) a 3-1 lead and then extended it to 4-1 in the sixth by drilling a 426-foot blast to center.
McCovey Cove was spared a splash by Judge, at least in the first game of the series.
The two home runs, both off Giants right-gander Jordan Hicks, gave Judge the major league lead alone with 20 on the season.
A ridiculous 14 of those came in the month of May as Judge awoke from a quiet April and wreaked havoc on opposing pitchers.
He also broke away from a tie with Lou Gehrig and became the first Yankee to hit 14 home runs and 12 doubles in a single calendar month.
After Judge’s second home run of the night, the Yankees fans in attendance showered him with “MVP” chants, which also drew boos from the home crowd.
Marcus Stroman made sure Judge’s latest feats came in a win as he was sharp and efficient across 7 ¹/₃ innings to keep the Giants (29-29) at bay.
It marked the second time in three starts Stroman has recorded an out in the eighth inning, lowering his ERA to 2.73 in the process.
Before the game, after reliving the “uneasy” days leading up to Judge finally re-signing with the Yankees in December 2022, manager Aaron Boone was unsure of what the crowd reaction might be for his captain.
“Look, most superstars, there’s a level of a mixed reaction all the time, and that’s certainly the case when we go places,” Boone said. “So I’m sure there’ll be a little bit of that, but he’s also such a beloved figure for being one of the faces of the sport that it’s kind of hard to dislike Aaron.”
The majority of Giants fans in attendance on Friday night did not share the same sentiment, still not over Judge — a native of Linden, Calif. — passing up a chance to return home.
The Yankees’ West Coast trip began in similar fashion last weekend in San Diego, when Juan Soto heard more boos than cheers from the stadium he called home the last season and a half before the Padres traded him.
And of course, Soto answered by crushing a home run in a Yankees win.
Judge took that to another level on Friday.
The Giants took the lead first off Stroman in the bottom of the second inning thanks to a well-placed pop up and a defensive miscue from Gleyber Torres.
Matt Chapman led off by skying a ball into no-man’s land down the left-field line, falling for a single. Patrick Bailey came up next and roped a ground ball to Torres, who took a step to his left, reached out and saw the ball go under his glove.
The play, which was inexplicably ruled a single and not an error, put runners on the corners.
Jorge Soler then cashed in with a sacrifice fly that scored Chapman.
After Judge’s home run in the sixth inning, the Yankees added a pair of insurance runs with some hustle.
Torres singled to end Hicks’ night and Anthony Rizzo followed with a double off the right-field brick wall against left-hander Taylor Rogers.
Both came in to score on the first pitch to Austin Wells, which went to the backstop on a passed ball.
Catcher Patrick Bailey’s throw to Rogers at the plate was already too late to get Torres, but the ball squirted away and Rizzo raced home from third to make it 6-1.
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