Aaron Judge kept glancing at first before home run, but don’t assume he was cheating

Something curious was happening with Aaron Judge when the Yankees faced the Blue Jays on Tuesday night — he kept glancing over towards first base during his at-bat in the eighth inning. It was enough to pique the interest of the Jays’ broadcasters, who discussed the prevalence of the glancing. Then discussion went wild when Judge homered immediately following another glance.

So what was Judge doing? Nobody truly knew. There was speculation he was looking at the pitch clock, but that was located in center field — not down first. Naturally there was a fair amount of suspicion. Was Judge really looking at the Yankees’ first base coach who was potentially giving him tips?

Judge’s answer, if you buy it, is far more benign. Yankees manager Aaron Boone was barking in the dugout at the home plate umpire, being upset about his zone and a called strike earlier in the inning. The story goes that Boone continued to protest from the dugout, and it was interrupting Judge’s at-bat, so he was glancing over to the manager as if to tell him to shut up and let him concentrate.

“There was a lot of chirping from our dugout, which I didn’t really like in a situation where it’s a 6-0 game and Boonie got tossed,” Judge said. “I was trying to save Boonie by calling timeout, like, ‘Hey, hold up here. Let me work here.’ I was kind of trying to see who was chirping in the dugout; it’s 6-0 and Boonie got tossed. Let’s just go to work. I’m kind of looking, like, ‘Who’s still talking here?’”

The Jays are still suspicious of what happened. They stopped short of making any accusations against Judge and the Yankees, but still say they’re going to be monitoring the situation for the rest of the series.

“It’s kind of odd that a hitter would be looking in that direction,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “He’s obviously looking in that direction for a reason. I think we’ll dive into that a little bit more tonight and tomorrow, and make sure that we’re doing everything we can to not make ourselves susceptible to tendencies, locations, pitches or anything like that.”

Judge’s explanation is completely plausible, and he hasn’t had moments like this in the past. We know Boone was chirping, and we know he was tossed as a result. Additionally, it’s not like Aaron Judge needed a tip to hammer that homer, because it was down the meat of the plate and a pretty bad pitch.

Time will tell, but for now it feels like a major stretch to assume he was cheating.