Yankees' Aaron Judge clears up 'cheating allegations,' says he was looking towards dugout at teammates 'chirping'
In the top of the eighth inning on Monday night with the Yankees up 6-0, the Toronto Blue Jays broadcasters became a bit suspicious of Aaron Judge glancing over at the dugout during his at-bat.
“All right, Buck, you and I looked at each other right when we saw this three pitches ago,” play-by-play announcer Dan Shulman said while showing a slow-motion video of Judge looking away.
“Watch what he’s looking at,” color commentator Buck Martinez said.
“You don’t want to go throwing allegations around without knowing, but…," Shulman added.
Judge, who had already hit a first-inning home run, would go on to crush his second homer of the game after manager Aaron Boone was ejected for arguing balls and strikes while his star player was at the plate.
After the Yanks' 7-4 win, Judge was asked about the "cheating allegations" and explained his reasoning for looking towards the dugout while hitting.
"Yeah I was kinda, lot of chirping from our dugout, which I really didn't like in the situation where it's a 6-0 game and I know Booney got tossed," Judge said. "I was trying to save Booney by calling timeout, like, 'Hey, hold up here, like let me work here.' So, I was trying to kind of see who was chirping in the dugout. So it's 6-0, Booney got tossed, let's work now."
Judge added: "Yeah I'm kind of looking like, 'Who's still talking here?' It's 6-0, our manager got tossed, he did his job, let's go back to playing ball."
The reigning AL MVP was asked if he felt his teammates continuing to chirp was "unnecessary" with the score the way it was, and said he spoke to them about the situation during and after the game.
"You know I like Booney sticking up for me and he always does," Judge said. "But I feel like after the manager does his thing, it's like, 'Fellas, our pitcher still got to go out there and make some pitches. We got the lead, let's go to work here.' I said a couple things to some guys in the dugout and especially after the game. Hopefully it won't happen again."
