Brett Gardner caught wind of Aaron Judge’s playful comments from Wednesday, when Judge listed the longest-tenured Yankee at “5-foot-6 and 150 pounds,” and Gardner fired back on Thursday when it was his turn to speak to reporters.
“I tell him that all the time,” Gardner said. “I tell him I might hit 80 home runs a year if I was as big as he is.”
The two teammates have joked back and forth with each other regarding their size in the past, with Judge putting up and Instagram post back in August with a photo of Judge laughing at an animated Gardner during batting practice with the caption, “Gardy still trying to explain to us how that ball got out of left field,” shortly after Gardner hit the first opposite field home run of his career (not including inside-the-park home runs).
Gardner, despite the noticeable size differential to Judge, has shown some recent pop, hitting a career-high 28 home runs in his last full season in 2019.
“He’s got a good sense of humor,” Gardner said of Judge. “But I tell him all the time if I was 6’ 7’’, 275 pounds, can you imagine how far I would hit a baseball?”
Despite Gardner’s power climb in recent years, his size makes him the source of jokes amongst the team, even former teammates. After Gardner’s opposite field home run against the Phillies, Phil Hughes tweeted that “Gardy is my boy, but if he’s going oppo the league has a baseball problem.” Gardner doesn’t have social media, but the team made sure he’d see it by printing out Hughes’ tweet and placing it on Gardner’s chair in the Yankee clubhouse.
“Any time I hit a home run, it’s usually unexpected, especially to that side of the field,” Gardner said after that home run. “The guys usually give me a hard time, as I do to them most of the time.”
Gardner likely won’t have a chance to get to 80 home runs, let alone his previous high of 28 as Aaron Boone has considered Clint Frazier as the new starting left fielder, but with the recent injury past for outfielders like Judge and Aaron Hicks, Gardner will be ready for anything.
“We’ve seen this kind of thing before,” Gardner said. “Things happen and it doesn’t always unfold the way you draw it up. You have to deal with injuries, and the more depth you have the better…whenever my name is called, I’ll be ready.”
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February 26, 2021 at 01:32AM
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Brett Gardner claps back at Aaron Judge joke: 'I might hit 80 home runs a year - WCBS 880
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