Yankees slugger Aaron Judge is now in the longest home run drought of his MLB career

The Yankees prevailed Thursday night in extra innings over the Red Sox , 2-1 , on Juan Soto's 10th-inning walk-off single. It moved the Yankees to 85-62 on the season, good for a two-game lead in the AL East and for the best record in the American League. AL MVP front-runner Aaron Judge went 1 for 4.

He did not hit a home run. In fact, it was the 16th straight game Judge went without a home run, marking now the longest home run drought of his MLB career.

Judge hit his 51st home run of the season on Aug. 25 and was on pace to get well over 60 home runs. It was historic. The only players in MLB history to get to the 60-homer threshold multiple times have a PED cloud hanging over them. Judge just got there in 2022 and there's still a chance he will make it in 2024. It's just that this drought has made it so much tougher. The Yankees have only 15 games left and Judge remains nine homers away from 60.

Judge has gone 71 plate appearances in his 16 games without a homer while hitting .207/.352/.259.

Judge's previous longest home run droughts:

• From Aug. 17 through Sept. 2, 2017, he went 15 games and 63 plate appearances without a home run
• Spanning multiple seasons, from Aug. 26, 2020 through April 4, 2021, he went 14 regular-season games.
• From July 20 through Aug. 3, 2019, Judge went 14 games without a home run.
• He also went 14 games in 2018 (July 23 through Sept. 27, a span that included an injury).

His manager isn't worried right now.

"He's got 51 homers," Aaron Boone said ( ESPN.com ). "And tonight, just missed one. Pummeled a ball that Devers made an unbelievable play on. Turning that ball into a double play was about as good a play as you'll see. So, I mean, look, homers, even for guys like that, they still come in bunches and you're going to have those stretches. I guess it's amazing that he has avoided those, but that's just testament to how good of a hitter and how much power he has."

Despite the rough stretch, Judge still leads the majors in home runs, RBI, walks, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, OPS+, total bases and WAR.