Aaron Judge homers again as Gerrit Cole holds Guardians at bay in Yankees’ 6-0 victory

NEW YORK — Another day, another dinger.

Such was the case for Aaron Judge on Thursday afternoon, as the majors’ home run leader launched his 48th long ball in the Yankees’ 6-0, rubber match win over the Guardians. The fourth-inning solo shot off Gavin Williams got the Yankees on the board while simultaneously putting Judge on a 60-homer pace.

Only Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa have recorded multiple 60-homer seasons, but Judge has a chance to join that small group after resetting the American League single-season record with 62 dingers in 2022.

Judge’s pace has been aided by a recent surge, as Thursday gave him four home runs in the three-game series, seven in his last 10 games and 16 in his last 33 games. Then again, No. 99 has been on a tear ever since overcoming a difficult first month, crushing 44 homers in his last 99 games.

The front-runner for what would be a second American League MVP award, Judge also leads the majors in RBIs (118), OBP (.465) and slugging (.726), and he is second in average (.334).

Judge’s slugging percentage is higher than the .713 OPS all major league hitters had combined for entering Thursday, an objectively crazy statistic.

Scared of Judge doing more damage, the Guardians decided to intentionally walk the center fielder with two men on after issuing two balls in the fifth. Austin Wells proceeded to drive a run in with a sac fly before Giancarlo Stanton lined a three-run jack just over the center-field fence. The DH now has 21 homers this season.

Ben Rice gave the Yankees another run with a sac fly in the eighth.

While the Yankees’ gargantuan sluggers handled most of the scoring, Gerrit Cole blanked the Guardians over six innings for his 150th career win.

The Yankees ace struggled with his command, totaling a season-high five walks, but he only allowed one hit over 95 pitches. He also struck out two.

One of those walks came on just three pitches, as Cole’s second inning began with a clock violation after home plate umpire Derek Thomas appeared to tell him that he threw too many warm-up pitches. Charged with a ball, Cole and Yankees manager Aaron Boone protested the call, with the former appearing to say “now you’re slowing up the f------ game.”

Cole escaped the inning unscathed, though the still-angry pitcher appeared to yell another profanity from the dugout afterward.

While irritated early on — Cole also had a talk with Thomas after his last inning — Thursday marked a successful outing for the righty. Cole has now allowed just one run over his last 17 1/3 innings, and his ERA sits at 3.72.

With the fellow first-place Guardians defeated — they didn’t get another hit after Cole’s exit — the Yankees will turn their attention to the last-place Rockies on Friday.

Carlos Rodón is scheduled to start the series opener. The Yankees had not finalized their pitching plans for the rest of the series, but rookie right-hander Will Warren is expected to start one of the games after not coming out of the bullpen on Thursday.

Kyle Freeland, Bradley Blalock and Austin Gomber are lined up for Colorado.