Aaron Judge has homered in five straight Yankees games but is ’not locked in yet’

“He is just a great player,” Manager Aaron Boone said, “who is feeling really good and getting close to being locked in.”

Judge homered for the fifth straight game, with the second Sunday night a two-run homer that traveled 468 feet with two outs in the eighth inning, breaking a tie. He is the first Yankees slugger to hit homers in five straight games since Alex Rodriguez in 2007. He is also the first Yankees player to homer six times in the first eight games of a season since A-Rod in 2007, the year in which he hit 54 and was the American League MVP.

Judge concurred with his manager’s assessment.

“Not locked in yet,” Judge said. “Still trying to find it. That’s the daily grind of baseball, searching for that locked-in feeling. I’m feeling good.”

Judge has been capitalizing on a bit of good timing. The coronavirus pandemic forced a postponement of the beginning of the baseball season and Judge used the time to recover from a fractured rib and punctured lung. Now he is, as they say, swinging the bat well even if he isn’t locked in.

“Locked in, for me, is if I’m going 5 for 5 every night,” he said after his 2-for-4, five-RBI game. “I still got out a couple times, chased a couple pitches. There’s some times when I’m not really locked in. For me right now, it’s not about missing my pitch. …

“When they leave one over the plate, I’ve got to do some damage on it.”

Now, he’ll try to hit a home run in a sixth consecutive game. The Yankees are scheduled to play Monday night against the visiting Phillies, who have not played since July 26 because the team was being monitored for exposure to the coronavirus after a series against the Miami Marlins. The Phillies announced Thursday that two of their staffers tested positive for the virus.

An MLB player has homered in six or more consecutive games only 32 times. Six players have done it seven times and three — Ken Griffey Jr., Don Mattingly, and Dale Long — have eight-game streaks with a homer. Paul Goldschmidt was the most recent player to homer six games in a row; he accomplished the feat in July 2019.

“Every year, we’re on a mission, to go out there and win as many games as we can,” he said. “The last couple years, thinking about playoffs and not getting to the final goal that we want to get to — it’s time to get this thing rolling.”

At the moment, he may be tied for the most home runs through the first eight games in Yankees history, but his goals and the team’s are meshing.

“I’ve got my own personal goals and achievements that I want to accomplish each and every year, but none of that comes before the team, what I can do for the team on the defensive side and the offensive side,” he said. “So whenever my name gets called, whatever the situation when I’ve got to drive somebody in, I’m going to do it.”

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