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The New York Yankees' bats were rolling on Opening Day in San Francisco against the Giants.
Well, except for Aaron Judge.
The reigning AL MVP did not get his season off to the start he wanted.
In his first four at bats, Judge struck out four times. He became just the third Yankees player ever to strike out four times in an Opening Day game, joining Oswaldo Cabrera and Giancarlo Stanton.
They call four strikeouts in a game a "Golden Sombrero," and it's not the kind of gold you want.
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Is something wrong with Aaron Judge?
It's a long season, so the basic answer here is almost certainly "no."
It's still not the way anyone wants to start.
Judge actually didn't strike out four times in a single game in the entire 2025 season as he won the AL batting title while hitting .331 with 53 home runs.
He got the nightmare game out of the way early for 2026. The Yankees will just hope it doesn't happen again.
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"It seems like he's thinking a little bit too much at the plate rather than just letting it go, but we can't analyze day one," Giants legend Barry Bonds said when he joined the Netflix broadcast of the game.
Bonds is right. It's one game. Baseball is a long season, and hitting is hard.
Judge will be just fine.
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