Judge still chasing milestone homer

Aaron Judge tried to hold up his swing on a 2-2 fastball from Boston's John Schreiber that was darting high and outside through the afternoon shadows.

Chris Conroy signaled strike three, and Judge pointed his left arm at the first-base umpire, then waved in disgust toward the umpire while walking back to the Yankees dugout.

"Judgy reacts. He just doesn't go argue with you," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Saturday after Judge went homer-less for the fourth straight game and remained one shy of Roger Maris' American League record of 61. "It was a case of he felt like he held a swing, A simple reaction, but he was locked right back in."

New York beat the Red Sox 7-5 to close in on its first AL East title since 2019, getting a tie-breaking, two-run homer from Anthony Rizzo in the seventh off Schreiber (3-4).

Judge was 0 for 3 with two strikeouts, a flyout to medium center and a walk. Since hitting No 60 to spark a ninth-inning comeback on Tuesday night, Judge is 3 for 13 with two doubles, five walks and six strikeouts.

His batting average dropped to .314 as Boston's Xander Bogaerts went 2 for 4 and took over the AL lead at .315.Judge leads the major leagues with 128 RBIs and is in contention for the first Triple Crown since Detroit's Miguel Cabrera in 2012.

With the Maris and Judge families again in attendance, the sellout crowd of 47,611 stood and buzzed each time Judge walked to the plate, then quieted for each pitch, as if focusing on a circus attraction called on to perform some feat. Each foul was met with groans, pitches out of the strike zone with boos.

"Even for a guy that hit 60 home runs, he still doesn't hit them every day," Boone said. "A lot of things got to line up to go deep, even for the best of the best. So as long as he continues to take good at-bats and make good swing decisions, it'll happen sooner rather than later."

Rizzo drove a changeup into the right-field bleachers two pitches later to break a 5-5 tie, reaching his career high of 32 homers for the fourth time.

Judge was on deck when the eighth inning ended, and a large number of fans rooted for the Red Sox to overcome a two-run deficit in the ninth. Scott Effross, sidelined by a strained right shoulder since Aug 20, allowed Boston to load the bases before getting his third save when Bobby Dalbec grounded into a game-ending force out.

"It was kind of weird. The last inning there was a section toward right field, they started chanting 'Let's Go Red Sox!' and it was a bunch of Yankee fans," said Boston manager Alex Cora. "They were wearing their jerseys."

Agencies Via Xinhua