Baseball season is back — even for broadcasters.
Longtime Yankees announcer and ESPN Radio host Michael Kay pushed back strongly against criticism directed at USA captain Aaron Judge following his lackluster performance in the World Baseball Classic.
Kay called out fans who questioned the star outfielder’s effort and production on the international stage, namely in the championship game, when he went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts.
Kay addressed the backlash during his radio show, taking issue with what he described as an overreaction to a small sample of games.
“We can go up and down that All-Star-laden-Hall-of-Fame-to-be lineup, and they all crapped the bed. Every single one of them except for Harper,” Kay said this week. “But the one guy who’s going to get villainized and scrutinized and criticized, the one guy that everybody decides, ‘I’m going to pile on this guy,’ is Aaron Judge, who if you look at his numbers in the WBC, probably had as good a WBC as anybody that played on Team USA.”
Judge went 6-for-27 with two homers and five RBIs in the tournament.
He hit .222 with an .845 OPS — outside of the team’s top five in each category.
“Derek Jeter has five World Series championships and he’s called overrated,” Kay said. “Aaron Judge has no World Series championships, and he’s called overrated. The haters are out there in full force. That’s just the way of the world right now.”
Kay added, “As I said this [Wednesday], I blame Yankee fans that try to find the warts on this guy. Those are the people I don’t get,” Kay said. “And I know you’re starved for another championship. I get it. [It’s] been since 2009. I understand. But you’re Yankee fans and you see what he does to get you into the postseason on a yearly basis.”
Judge and the Yankees are the favorites to win the American League for the second time in three years this coming season.
The soon-to-be 34-year-old is a career .236 playoff hitter with an .822 OPS.