Why is Aaron Judge’s first career performance at Oracle Park so notable? | Baseball Bar-B-Cast

Yahoo Sports senior MLB analyst Jake Mintz and senior MLB analyst Jordan Shusterman break down the Yankees vs. Giants matchup in San Francisco and what it meant for Aaron Judge to play at Oracle Park for the first time. Hear the full conversation on the “Baseball Bar-B-Cast” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

We'll begin out in the Bay Yankees Giants, Aaron Judge playing at Oracle Park in San Francisco for the first time in his career, which is notable for two reasons.

Reason, number one, Aaron Judge is from kind of the area he's close to.

There has been a lot of close to there than every stadium except for Oakland, technically closer to the Coliseum where he grew up, uh kind of inland closer to Stockton uh than the Bay, but he did grow up the San Francisco Giants fan.

So that is reason number one, why it's important reason number two is that in the off season ahead of 2023 Aaron Judge and the San Francisco Giants almost got married.

But instead, Mr Judge returned to the Nueva York Yankees who could forget John Hayman's tweet arson judge to Giants, one of a kind unforgettable will live in our hearts and minds forever.

There was a period of time that Giants fans thought Aaron Judge was on their team instead he is not, he could have been bearded playing a vocal instead he is clean shaven, really hard to imagine.

I can't even picture that.

But yes, no that all of that, that, that, that, uh, that prelude is, is appropriate.

The thing is, you know, Judge gives a quote, oh, I've dreamed about this for a long time and all the Giants fans are like, oh, really?

Well, you could have gotten it a lot sooner if you had just signed with us.

Aaron Judge in his return in return a rival to the Bay home run in his first game.

Oh, just kidding, two home runs in his first game and then in game number two, a 460 ft first inning blast.

Three dons across the three games for Mr Judge.

And what did the Yankees win all three?

They win game three on a outrageous comeback against Camilla Duval where Juan Soto hits a go ahead two run shot on a grooved heater down the pipe.

Yankees are on fire.

Great to me.

It was the juxtaposition of Aaron Judge being on the Yankees and the Giants who holy crap.

Could they use an Aaron Judge type?

Which I understand is a ridiculous sentence to say.

But it, there, there is an Aaron Judge sized hole in this roster where the Giants have just been.

They're so good at the margins at finding these little extra nuggets of wins around town, but they just need a really good baseball player and for Aaron Judge to roll an oracle and show them what that looks like was I would imagine disheartening for Giants fans and more joy for Yankees fans.