Aaron Judge, now in his ninth season with the New York Yankees, achieved a new milestone in his career during a game on Saturday afternoon. The 2022 American League MVP was ejected from a game for the first time after he argued a called third strike by home plate umpire Ryan Blakney in the seventh inning. The incident occurred when Judge disagreed with a 3-2 count fastball from Detroit Tigers pitcher Tyler Holton that he believed was outside the strike zone. Judge expressed his disagreement with the call before walking back to the dugout, where he was ejected by Blakney.
Despite the strike zone graphic showing that the pitch was on the edge of the plate but outside the zone, the umpire believed that Judge should have swung at the close pitch. Judge was taken out of the game after going 2-for-4 with an RBI, and the Yankees went on to win the game 5-3. This ejection marked the first time in Judge’s career that he had been tossed from a game and made him the first Yankees captain to receive an ejection since Don Mattingly in 1994, with Derek Jeter never experiencing an ejection during his 12 seasons as captain.
Judge, whose season average increased to .209 after the game, expressed surprise at the ejection, as did his teammates and manager Aaron Boone. Despite the ejection, Judge maintained respect for the umpire and acknowledged the difficulty of their job. It was noted that Blakney consistently called pitches just outside the zone as strikes throughout the game, which may have influenced his decision to eject Judge.