On Tuesday night, New York Yankees sluggers Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton both hit home runs. And at this point, considering what we've seen over the past two months, that's no longer a surprising occurrence. Both of the hulking outfielders have been on unrelenting tears dating back to the beginning of August, and so a game in which each of them belts a bomb into the outfield seats is not as striking as it might be for another team's duo of hitters.
What is surprising, however, is just how historic their parallel hot streaks are when looking through the record books.
Thanks to a brilliant statistical finding, one appropriately made by popular Twitter account "Stats by STATS," the production that Stanton and Judge have collectively posted in August and September is matched by only one other pair in MLB history: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, perhaps the greatest offensive combination that we have seen — and likely will ever see.
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Here's what Stanton and Judge have done in August and September of the 2021 season, with a couple of games left in the latter month:
— Stanton: 9 HR, 25 RBI (August) | 10 HR, 25 RBI (September)
— Judge: 8 HR, 26 RBI (August) | 8 HR, 20 RBI (September)
And here's what Ruth and Gehrig did back in 1931, a year in which both sluggers had 46 home runs and over 160 RBI apiece:
— Ruth: 9 HR, 31 RBI (August) | 9 HR, 22 RBI (September)
— Gehrig: 8 HR, 39 RBI (August) | 8 HR, 30 RBI (September)
I also can't help myself from noting that Gehrig, from August 28 to September 1 of that season, had six home runs, 21 RBI and a .407/.429/1.148 slash line. He's one of only three players with 21 RBI across a six-game span, and he's responsible for two separate instances of such production. But I digress.
It's hard to find any other players in the majors, let alone two players on the same team, that are as hot as Stanton and Judge are as the playoffs draw near, though there are certainly some other notable performers.
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Luckily for the Yankees, their two sluggers' hot streaks couldn't have come at a better time. The Yankees' postseason odds at the start of August, according to FanGraphs, were at 53.5 percent. Just ten days ago, their chances were all the way down at 28.9 percent. Today? 93.0 percent. And if Stanton and Judge keep doing their thing, you can expect those odds to keep on climbing — and the chances of a World Series title to head in the same direction.
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