David Schoenfield, ESPN Senior WriterJun 6, 2024, 07:00 PM
You may have heard that New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge had a pretty good month of May, hitting .361 with 14 home runs. It's not the first time the superstar has gone off in one calendar month. Indeed, his dominance in May led to this question: Is Judge the current king of calendar month hot streaks?
To find out, we came up with a list of the top 10 best calendar months among active players to see where Judge's May ranks -- or any of his other best months. And, yes, a calendar month is a bit of an artificial creation, even more so when considering that in baseball, "April" includes games from March and "September" includes games from October, but that's just how baseball goes. This list is ultimately subjective, but we focused on stats such as OPS, runs created, home runs and RBIs.
To give you an idea of just how dominant the months are that did crack the top 10, take a look at some that just missed:
Bryce Harper, May 2015: .361/.495/.884, 13 HR, 28 RBI, 24 R, 37.2 RC
Mike Trout, July 2012: .392/.455/.804, 10 HR, 23 RBI, 32 R, 39.5 RC
Julio Rodriguez, August 2023: .429/.474/.724, 7 HR, 30 RBI, 19 R, 36.6 RC
Paul Goldschmidt, May 2022: .404/.471/.817, 10 HR, 33 RBI, 20 R, 41.3 RC
We'd be remiss not to include the top honorable mention (and one of my personal favorite months): Freddie Freeman's May 2023, in which he slashed .400/.462/.722 with six home runs, 26 RBIs, 28 runs, 39.7 runs created and 17 doubles. That's no small feat. The last player with 17 doubles in a month before Freeman was Joey Votto in September 2009 -- and the last players with more were Todd Helton (18) and Carlos Delgado (19), both in July 2000, when offensive numbers were much higher than they are nowadays.
Now, let's dig into the top 10.
10. Aaron Judge, September 2022: .380/.533/.790, 11 HR, 18 RBI, 29 R, 45.7 RC
Judge would need a big final month to break Roger Maris' American League record of 61 home runs -- and he delivered, despite the pressure and despite pitchers trying to avoid pitching to him as much as possible (he drew 33 walks in 30 games). Judge had homered just once over 13 games before finally topping Maris with his 62nd in Game 161.
9. Christian Yelich, April 2019: .353/.460/.804, 14 HR, 34 RBI, 26 R, 41.2 RC
From the second half of 2018 through much of 2019, Yelich was the best hitter on the planet. He had hit .367 with 25 home runs in the second half of 2018, including .370/.509/.804 in September with 10 home runs and 34 RBIs. That September, followed by his monster April the following season, may have been the best back-to-back months since Barry Bonds' July-August 2003 (though Bonds had many incredible months to choose from). But then Yelich fractured his kneecap in September 2019 and, along with the back issues that have plagued him, hasn't been the same MVP-type player since (he is, however, currently having one of his best seasons).
8. Aaron Judge, September 2017: .311/.463/.889, 15 HR, 32 RBI, 29 R, 40.6 RC
This was from Judge's rookie season, when he mashed 52 homers. After struggling in August, hitting .185 with three home runs (he would reveal the following spring that he had injured his shoulder in the Home Run Derby), Judge caught fire the final month, including 13 home runs over his final 19 games.
7. Austin Riley, July 2022: .423/.460/.885, 11 HR, 25 RBI, 21 R, 42.3 RC
Riley didn't hit higher than .268 in any other month in 2022 but had a July for the ages on his way to leading the National League in total bases. He lined 15 doubles, giving him 26 extra-base hits for the month. To put that number in perspective, here is the list of players with at least 26 extra-base hits in a month during the expansion era (since 1961):
Frank Robinson, July 1961: 27
Albert Belle, August 1995: 27
Albert Belle, September 1995: 27
Richard Hidalgo, September 2000: 27
Randy Winn, September 2005: 27
Austin Riley, July 2022: 26
Aaron Judge, May 2024: 26
Only six other players have even had 25, but ... ALBERT BELLE, two months in a row! Over those two months, Belle hit .350/.439/.885 with 31 home runs, 23 doubles and 62 RBIs in 58 games. He finished the season with 52 doubles and 50 home runs -- the only 50/50 season in MLB history. Hidalgo's month, however, may be the best of the expansion era as he hit .477/.532/.953 with 11 home runs and 32 RBIs in 29 games, creating an estimated 58.0 runs, the highest single-month total since 1961 (Bonds in September 2001 is next at 54.5).
6. J.D. Martinez, September 2017: .396/.431/.951, 16 HR, 36 RBI, 26 R, 36.2 RC
This was the season Martinez was traded from the Detroit Tigers to the Arizona Diamondbacks, and this Godzilla month only included one game in October. Martinez had a four-homer, six-RBI game Sept. 4 and then another six-RBI game Sept. 26. He sat out three games that month, otherwise he might have had a chance at 40 RBIs -- which has been reached in a single month just six times since 1961 (the last by Troy Tulowitzki in September 2010).
5. Giancarlo Stanton, August 2017: .349/.433/.899, 18 HR, 37 RBI, 28 R, 42.7 RC
Stanton's 18 home runs are the most in a month by an active player -- a total matched only by Rudy York in August 1937 and surpassed only by Sammy Sosa's 20 in June 1998. Stanton homered 11 times in 12 games from Aug. 4 through Aug. 15 and entered September with a good chance of reaching 60, but he slowed down to eight for the month and went homerless his final three games to finish with 59. That would set up the trade that offseason that sent Stanton from the Miami Marlins to the Yankees, uniting two players in Stanton and Judge who had combined for 111 home runs in 2017. Their highest total as teammates has been 93 in 2022, but with Stanton hitting better this season, maybe the pair has a chance to beat that total.
4. Mookie Betts, August 2023: .455/.516/.839, 11 HR, 30 RBI, 35 R, 49.6 RC
As we've seen this season, when he was red-hot early on before tailing off in May, Betts has an odd tendency to swing wildly from month to month at times. You would think his style of hitting would lead to more consistent results, but that isn't always the case. Last August, he rapped out 51 hits in 28 games and, if you remember, had essentially chased down Ronald Acuna Jr. for the lead in the MVP race. But then Betts hit just .244 with one home run in September while Acuna had a huge month, leading to the Atlanta Braves star taking home the honor.
3. Aaron Judge, May 2024: .361/.479/.918, 14 HR, 27 RBI, 28 R, 45.0 RC
So Judge's big May slots in third. Throw in the 12 doubles that gave him those 26 extra-base hits we mentioned above and it was a historic month -- possibly worthy of one of the top two spots. I wouldn't argue too vociferously if you think he deserves to be first. One argument for his case is that this month has come in a season when the ball isn't carrying well and the league is hitting just .240. It's not 2019 (or the funny-number PED era). Indeed, despite a slow April, Judge's wRC+, which adjusts for league run-scoring environment, is closing in on his figure from 2022. He could have a second season with a 200 RC+ -- which only all-time legends (Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Bonds) have achieved.
2. Cody Bellinger, April 2019: .431/.508/.890, 14 HR, 37 RBI, 32 R, 49.7 RC
For one glorious month, everything came together for Bellinger: the stroke, the power, the BABIP, the juiced ball. He homered on Opening Day, hit two more in the third game and was hitting .455 with seven home runs through 10 games. Did he benefit from the ball? Sure, more home runs were hit that season than any other. But he was squaring up the baseball: nine of his 14 home runs traveled 400-plus feet and eight had an exit velocity of 105 mph or higher. Of course, he's never been as good as he was in April 2019, although he did slug over .500 every month that season (on his way to the MVP award) and hit .400 with eight home runs last July. It was a crazy, ridiculous month ... But not No. 1 on my list.
1. Shohei Ohtani, June 2023: .394/.492/.952, 15 HR, 29 RBI, 27 R, 49.9 RC
It's close, but I'm going with Ohtani's incredible run from last June when he homered 15 times in 27 games, while adding seven doubles and three triples to give him 25 extra-base hits -- one of just 13 times a player has had at least 25 extra-base hits in a month during the expansion era. He did it in a slightly tougher offensive environment than Bellinger in 2019, if you want to consider that, and in four fewer games (Bellinger had four games in March included in his April totals). We mentioned Bellinger's power, but Ohtani's was at a completely different, awe-inspiring level: His average home run distance for the month was 430 feet and he had six of 440-plus feet -- including his final one of June, this 493-foot blast.
Oh, and if you need a tiebreaker, he did a little pitching on the side.
Now let's answer our original question: Yes, I'm crowning Judge the active king of the calendar month hot streak. With three of the top 10 months, plus a fourth one to consider (July 2022: .333/.446/.807, 13 HR, 32 RBI, 25 R, 34.6 RC), it's a pretty easy call. As the Yankees continue to blitz through this season, they can only hope Judge's next historic month comes in October.
