Ex-Yankees coach Phil Nevin knew better than to pitch to Aaron Judge

ANAHEIM, Calif.. – Phil Nevin, for the short period of time in the third and fifth innings Monday night that it took him to hold up four fingers, was decidedly the most unpopular man inside Angel Stadium.

Nevin, the Angels interim manager and the Yankees third base coach from 2018-21, chose in those innings to have starter Jose Suarez, with first base open each time, intentionally walk Aaron Judge and pitch to Andrew Benintendi.

Both calls drew quite vocal booing from the sellout crowd of 44,537, about half of which – and maybe more – were Yankees fans.

“My own stadium’s booing me,” Nevin said with a laugh Tuesday, a few hours before his team tried to take the second of the three-game series after winning, 4-3, Monday night. “I talked before the game, I’m not going to let Aaron Judge beat me. That’s just the way it is…I heard it loud and clear. Yankees fans right above our dugout screaming at me. But I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to try and win games and put my players in the best [position] to succeed. Yesterday for Suarez, his best chance to get through those innings was to pitch to Benny there.”

But Nevin, who grew friendly with Judge during the pair’s time with the Yankees, allowed Ryan Tepera to pitch to the outfielder with one out in the eighth inning.

Three pitches later, on a 1-and-1 curveball, Judge’s 50th homer of the season was well on its way into the rockpile in center, the estimated 434-foot blast making him just the 10th player in league history to reach the 50-home run plateau twice (Judge hit 52 in 2017 when he was the unanimous AL Rookie of the Year award winner and runner-up in MVP voting to Houston’s Jose Altuve).

The homer, which cut the Angels’ lead to 4-3, had Nevin shaking his head a day later.

“What made it more impressive is Tep, he’s thrown the curveball maybe three or four times this year, it’s like a 1% rate,” Nevin said Tuesday in an interview in the Angels dugout. “He throws one curveball in the last month, and I mean Judge is all over it. That’s how well he’s seeing it. He couldn’t have been up there looking for a curveball, I know that.”

Nevin, who like Judge is a native of California, said ever since watching Judge from afar hit those 52 homers in 2017, he’s felt the sky is the limit in terms of how many he could get in a season.

“For me, yeah, if he stayed healthy, I always said, especially in that stadium [Yankee Stadium], although he makes any stadium look small, that 61 was certainly always within reach,” Nevin said.

Judge throughout the season has consistently deemphasized his home run total, instead preferring to credit his teammates for putting him in positions to succeed and stressing team accomplishments above everything else.  

“I’m not downplaying it, I just don’t like talking numbers. It doesn’t mean anything because we lost,” Judge said. “We can talk about numbers and all that kind of stuff when the season’s over with, we can review it, but for right now, the most important thing for me is getting some wins.”

Nevin indicated, from his behind-the-scenes observations of, and interactions with, Judge from 2018-21, those kind of comments are not lip service.

“He’s a great teammate. He’s just an awesome person,” said Nevin, who accumulated 1,131 hits in his 12-year big-league career. “When your superstars are your best dudes, you’ve got a good thing going. And I have that here with Mike [Trout] and Shohei (Ohtani). But it’s rare. It’s rare that your superstars are that engaged with his teammates or that engaged with the coaching staff. And Aaron really is. He’s genuine with everything and wants to help his teammates. He wants everyone to be better around him.”

Aaron Judge is the 10th player to join the list of sluggers with multiple 50-home run seasons.

4 Sammy Sosa

1998 (66), 1999 (63), 2000 (50), 2001 (64)

4 Mark McGwire

1996 (52), 1997 (58), 1998 (70), 1999 (65)

4 Babe Ruth

1920 (54), 1921 (59), 1927 (60), 1928 (54)

3 Alex Rodriguez

2001 (52), 2002 (57), 2007 (54)

2 Aaron Judge*

2017 (52), 2022 (50) 

2 Ken Griffey Jr.

1997 (56), 1998 (56)

2 Mickey Mantle

1956 (52), 1961 (54)

2 Willie Mays

1955 (51), 1965 (52)

2 Ralph Kiner

1947 (51), 1949 (54)

2 Jimmie Foxx

1932 (58), 1938 (50)

*Tuesday night’s game not included

Erik Boland started in Newsday’s sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.