With a 449-foot blast to left-center in the third inning on July 29, Aaron Judge of the Yankees became the first player in Major League Baseball to reach 40 home runs this season. That shouldn’t come as a surprise since he was the first to 10, 20 and 30 as well.
Then in the eighth inning, Judge put an exclamation point on his day, hitting a grand slam for No. 41 that turned a close game into a blowout.
As Judge pursues the Yankees’ single-season home run record — every non-Yankee who has hit at least 60 home runs has been connected to performance-enhancing drugs — we are tracking his progress against where Roger Maris was at in 1961 (when he hit 61) and where Babe Ruth was at in 1927 (when he hit 60).