Judge responds to rookie's 'spiciness' with 2-HR night

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NEW YORK -- Aaron Judge knew about the comments -- of course he did.

Not much happens at the corner of 161st and River without crossing the Yankees captain’s radar. So when a 25-year-old Red Sox rookie named Hunter Dobbins remarked that he’d rather “retire” than wear pinstripes, Judge took note.

“I’ve only heard Ken Griffey Jr. say that, so I was a little surprised,” Judge said after the Yankees’ 11-7 loss to Boston on Sunday evening at Yankee Stadium.

Dobbins made the comments in a pre-start interview with the Boston Herald, saying that he’d had his Bronx debut circled on the calendar for a long time, while adding: “If the Yankees were the last team to give me a contract, I’d retire.”

Judge’s memory is correct: Griffey did say that, part of a decades-old grudge against longtime principal owner George M. Steinbrenner, who supposedly once chased a young Griffey from the dugout while his dad was an active player.

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Dobbins? His dad was a Red Sox fan, which should automatically endear the 25-year-old hurler to the population of greater New England. It didn’t win him many friends in the right-field bleachers, though, where Judge took him for the first of his two homers on Sunday.

Judge cracked Dobbins’ sixth pitch over the Bombers’ bullpen for a two-run homer, then added a two-run blast in the ninth. He’s now tied with the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani for second in the Majors with 23 home runs, trailing the Mariners’ Cal Raleigh (26).

“He’s probably the best hitter on the planet right now,” said first baseman Paul Goldschmidt. “And he’s been doing it for multiple years, too. It’s not a one-night thing.”

But Carlos Rodón stumbled as the Yanks dropped the rubber game -- their second series loss in the last three. Dobbins heard plenty from the seats, but walked out carrying bragging rights and his third big league win.

“I mean, you can't really say something like that and not expect a passionate fan base like the Yankees to say something,” Dobbins said. “If anything, it made the rivalry atmosphere feel a lot more fun. I enjoyed it a lot.”

Rodón didn’t. Cruising through four innings, he lost his command of the strike zone, surrendering a game-tying Kristian Campbell homer in the fifth and Carlos Narváez’s go-ahead, three-run blast in the sixth.

“Falling behind hitters and giving out free bases is a no-go,” Rodón said. “I need to be better.”

Narváez had been a popular piece of Yankees property until this past December, when the Bombers relieved their catching glut by sending him to Boston for Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz, a hard-throwing right-hander.

Rodriguez-Cruz, the Yanks’ No. 6 prospect according to MLB Pipeline, has been forecast for a 2027 big league ETA. But Narváez is contributing in The Show right now, batting cleanup with a .282 batting average and six homers.

“Everybody loved him. He outworked everybody in this room,” Judge said.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. said the team had no issue with Dobbins’ quotes. Chisholm is no stranger to trash talk -- just ask the Royals, who bore the brunt of it during last year’s American League Division Series.

In fact, Chisholm said he’d like to see more of this down the road: in their clubhouse, Chisholm said his teammates intended to use them as motivation, adding “a lot of spiciness” to the rivalry.

But the Yanks never got back into the driver’s seat. Jarren Duran clipped Tim Hill for a two-run single, runs charged to Fernando Cruz. New York got as close as two runs down, but Abraham Toro and Trevor Story hit back-to-back homers in the seventh.

“They had their hitting shoes on,” manager Aaron Boone said. “They beat us here this weekend.”

Neither Cruz nor Jonathan Loáisiga have looked sharp since their respective returns from the injured list, and the Yanks’ bullpen feels considerably thinner without closer Luke Weaver. Boone wondered if it’s due to “still getting settled into the season.”

Judge wrung some positives out of the series defeat; the Yanks got plenty of looks at Boston’s bullpen, and perhaps that will pay dividends when these teams meet at Fenway Park for a three-game series beginning on Friday.

For now, they’ll shake it off and turn the page toward Kansas City. Judge has no interest in looking too long into the rear-view mirror, and definitely can’t waste time worrying about guys who’d rather not be on his team.

“The message is, ‘Just keep going,’” Judge said. “Whenever you play the Red Sox, it’s going to be a series like this: back and forth. That’s baseball. Just go back to work.”