Yankees' Judge fastest to 300 career home runs

CHICAGO -- New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge hit his 300th homer, reaching that milestone faster than any other player when he connected against the Chicago White Sox during a 10-2 victory on Wednesday night.

Judge hit the mark in his 955th game and 3,431st at-bat with a three-run drive in the eighth inning. The six-time All-Star and 2022 American League MVP drove a 3-0 up-and-in sinker from Chad Kuhl into the White Sox bullpen in left for his major-league-leading 43rd homer.

Ralph Kiner reached 300 homers in his 1,087th game, and Babe Ruth did in his 3,831st at-bat.

"I was hoping it came in a win," Judge said as teammates DJ LeMahieu and Austin Wells doused him with a tub of water.

Chicago was trailing 6-2 when interim manager Grady Sizemore intentionally walked Juan Soto to bring up Judge, who had not homered on a 3-0 pitch since 2021 and now has three such home runs in his career.

"I was mad about the intentional walk so that kind of fueled," Judge said. "Usually 3-0, I'll take a pitch, see a pitch, kind of pass it on to the next guy. But in that situation, if they don't want to pitch to you, you got to come through."

Judge leads the major leagues with 14 intentional walks. Soto was intentionally walked for the first time this season after hitting three homers Tuesday and another in the first inning Wednesday.

"It locks you in, but I get why he did it," Judge said. "The way Juan's been swinging the bat and what he's done in this series, four homers, driving the ball all over the park, I'd probably walk him, too, in that situation."

Sizemore made the decision in his fifth game after replacing Pedro Grifol as manager. He said the four homers by Soto caused him to make the decision.

"It's pick you poison. I'm not trying to get to Judge. I got a base open," Sizemore said. "There's no solution or an easy way out of that jam, but Soto's definitely been the hotter of those two bats, even though Judge has been hot, too."

It was just the second time in Judge's career that the batter before him was intentionally walked. The other time was during Judge's rookie year, on Aug. 31, 2016 (Chase Headley was intentionally walked at Kansas City in the 13th inning).

Judge, the 2022 AL MVP after hitting an American League-record 62 homers, is batting .333 and leads the major leagues with 110 RBIs. No. 300 came eight years and one day after Judge homered in his first big league at-bat.

"Definitely caught us off guard," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of the intentional walk, "but Aaron was ready to throw up a great at-bat.

"I thought he expanded the zone a little bit too much there on 3-0," the manager said playfully.

Judge is the seventh different player to hit 300 home runs for the Yankees in franchise history, joining Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Alex Rodriguez.

It took Judge 671 games to reach 200 career home runs; he needed just 284 games to go from 200 to 300.

Judge became the 162nd player all time to reach 300 homers. His total ranks 13th among active players.

ESPN Stats & Information, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.