Aaron Judge continues to struggle in the World Series

NEW YORK – For all the attention focused on Aaron Judge's conspicuous lack of performance this postseason, the ever-increasing spotlight on the Yankees captain certainly wasn't reflected in the reception he received from a packed Yankee Stadium crowd Game 3 of the World Series took place on Monday evening.

The Bronx faithful seemed to know that just about any path for the Yankees to fight back from the now-frightening 3-0 deficit in this series would have to be through No. 99 and the loudest roar of the night and the most spirited chants.” MVP” thundered as he stepped to the plate, as if daring Judge to remember his true identity.

Once again, he didn't – and after another quiet night from Judge and the Yankees' offense in a 4-2 loss to the Dodgers, they're nearing the end of their season, and the face of the franchise has acknowledged it. He has let his teammates down.

“Yeah, definitely,” Judge said. “You want to get the hits. You want to go out there and do your job. I'm not doing my job right now. I have to pick it up.”

An 0-for-3 performance with one walk led to Judge going without a multi-hit performance in 12 games this October – and that's the result of a monstrous regular season in which he hit .322/.457/.701 Hit 58 home runs.

In contrast, Judge is now 6-for-43 (.140) this postseason, with 20 strikeouts and two double-play grounders in 54 plate appearances. In 56 career playoff games, he is now hitting .196/.302/.430 for an OPS of .732. Judge and Reggie Sanders remain the only hitters in AL/NL history to hit under .200 in more than 200 postseason at-bats.

And Monday's four plate appearances were a microcosm of his struggles.

Plate Appearance 1: Strikeout Swinging
The bottom line: He stretches out and then fights with two strikes.

Amid Judge's talk of needing to be more disciplined in his strike zone, it's worth noting that his approach isn't completely broken. On this at-bat he swung pitches one, four and six – the fastballs – and took the three break balls. As far as pitch detection goes, that's what he wants.

An early count monster during the regular season, these deep counts for Judge made the natural swing-and-miss in his game clearly visible, and while in the regular season he was pretty good at protecting the plate with two strikes ( 28.3% whiff rate), which increased to a full 45% whiff rate with two strikes in the postseason.

But Judge gets to two strikes because, as he pointed out, he just swings more and extends to get there (see: pitch four). The chase rate, which was a fantastic 18.7% during the regular season, is up to 28.7% in the playoffs and up to 34.8% in the World Series.

“Sometimes you want to let things happen instead of letting the game happen to you,” Judge said.

But here's the thing: When it comes to two strikes, it's not the pitches outside the zone that are the biggest problem (although they were in this case). Here's what his strikeout pitches looked like this postseason:

Which leads us to our next point…

Plate representation 2: flyout to the left
Conclusion: Non-fastballs were a massive weakness.

Note any crossed out pitches in the zone from before? Look at all the swing-and-miss on offspeed plays in hittable spots for a guy who did a lot of damage with non-fastballs in the regular season.

That brings us to his second record appearance.

Walker Buehler left a first-pitch curveball as close to center as possible. Instead of slogging it out to Yonkers, Judge lifted a lazy flyout to left.

“When you take that out, things change,” Judge said.

This illustrates the crux of the problem: Offspeed and breaking pitches have been a disaster for Judge this postseason. In the regular season he managed 41.4%; That equates to a whopping 60.7% whiff rate in the playoffs, including a 10% increase in missing offspeed pitches in the strike zone (as shown in the strikeout chart).

And when he does make contact, the contact is bad: only out of the 55 such throws he made in the game this October one was a hit – an infield single.

This makes sense – offspeed pitches are better in the playoffs because the best pitchers from the best teams are pitching all the time. But the league-wide whiff rate on non-fastballs rose from just 32.3% in the regular season to 36.2% in the postseason — in contrast to Judge's jump.

Plate Appearance 3: Forceout
The bottom line: He doesn't hit the fastballs either.

As for the “better pitching” thing – the guys facing Judge this postseason have largely executed, and we saw that in this plate appearance where Brusdar Graterol got a sinker into Judge's hands for one Chopper back to the field to force hill.

Take a look at how Judge performed against fastballs in the regular season and there's room to attack him:

If you're going to throw a fastball to Judge, try not to leave it down or inside. Pitchers have largely done this, and even when Judge gets the increasingly rare fastball, he just doesn't do any damage. Of his 61 fastball hits in the zone this postseason… five have turned into hits.

Graterol attacked him with all his might – and was rewarded for it.

Plate Appearance 4: Walking
Conclusion: Patience is key… but is it too little or too late?

Judge did reach base in this final plate appearance by successfully knocking off three consecutive sliders from the plate (pitches four, five and six) – but that puts the blame on his teammates, of which Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton were the only ones major power players this offseason.

“You want to try and make something happen, but if you can't get space in the zone you just have to run and prepare for it [Stanton]” said the judge.

Judge has pointed to his plate discipline and not necessarily mechanical reasons for his malaise, and there will be plenty of time to dissect the “why” in due course, but here's the thing: Can the Yankees mount a comeback with a more patient Judge working ? more walks?

“I didn’t get any hits. “Didn’t drive anyone in,” Judge said of his Game 3.

Patience may not help much with things like this, especially if the Dodgers are simply willing to let Judge take his walks.