Watch out Barry Bonds, because you’ve got some competition. There’s this guy on the New York Yankees named Aaron Judge, and he’s pretty good at this whole hitting home runs thing.
[Still not too late to join a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league]
In the second inning of Monday’s game against the Miami Marlins, Judge became the fastest player ever to reach 60 career home runs. He reached the feat with a solo blast off Caleb Smith in the team’s 12-1 rout of the Marlins.
With his 60th career HR, Aaron Judge has set a new MLB record for fastest to 60 HR (197 G), surpassing Mark McGwire (202 G), per @YankeesPR. pic.twitter.com/lmXVb7UOVA
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) April 16, 2018
It took Judge just 197 career games to hit 60 home runs. He just edged out Mark McGwire, who reached that figure after 202 games.
Though Judge has shown a proficiency for the long ball, it’s too premature to start talking about the all-time home run record. Though Judge is relatively new to the majors, he’s older than you might think. The slugger will be 26 in 10 days. By the time Barry Bonds was entering his age-26 season, he had already hit 117 home runs.
If you refuse to name Bonds as the home run king — even though 762 is greater than 755 — Hank Aaron had 179 home runs when he started his age-26 season. Either way, Judge has a lot of work to do before he catches those two.
Still, reaching 60 home runs faster than any other player is quite the accomplishment. While the all-time home run record remains far out of reach, Judge does have a shot at being one of the best players of his era. We’re guessing he’ll settle for that.
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Chris Cwik is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at christophercwik@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik
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