Yankees must make opponents pay for walking Aaron Judge

The most damaging walk for the Yankees is not the one that Gleyber Torres took to first the other day, assuming a homer and winding up with a single and not long after that a message-sent benching by Aaron Boone. 

It is all the intentional ones that Aaron Judge is accumulating … 

Unless Austin Wells, Giancarlo Stanton and the rest of the batters behind Judge do something to make that strategy regrettable. 

“You are going to see it more and more,” Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker said. “He’s on such a roll right now that it’s going to become commonplace.” 

And Walker said that before Sunday’s game. Before he and manager John Schneider decided to intentionally walk Judge three times — twice in unconventional spots, though not as uncommon as the one issued Saturday. 

Walker, before a pitch was thrown in the rubber game of this three-game set, said, “You might see that where you walk him and put yourself in a spot where a single beats you, but you just are not going to let him swing that bat. You are just going to take your chances with the next guy. I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw that a lot. It might happen more than once.”