You may have missed it. No one could blame you if you had. But in the eighth inning of the Yankees' 4-2 win over the Royals at Yankee Stadium on Monday night, Kansas City pitcher Seth Maness did something unusual. He threw Aaron Judge a curveball, in the strike zone, and got away with it.
That's not something anybody has done much of this year. Sure, Judge is pummeling just about anything that gets thrown to him, but he's done enormous damage on curveballs in the zone (and knuckle-curves; for the purposes of this story, we're throwing them all in one bucket).