NEW YORK — Mike Trout vs. Aaron Judge transformed a baseball game into a heavyweight slugfest.
Trout’s second home run of the game bounced off the back wall behind the Los Angeles Angels’ bullpen in left-center, giving Los Angeles a two-run, eighth-inning lead on a night when Judge had homered twice to put the New York Yankees ahead.
Only there was more drama after the pair of three-time MVPs each homered twice in the same game for the first time in 70 years.
Trent Grisham hit his second home run of the evening — and season — to tie the score in the ninth inning. Jose Caballero trotted home on Jordan Romano’s game-ending wild pitch that gave the Yankees a pulsating 11-10 win Monday and stopped a five-game losing streak.
“It was great. That’s baseball for you,” Trout said. “It’s what fans want, and to be able to see something like that, pretty cool.”
Only once before had a pair of three-time MVPs each homered twice in a game, according to STATS Perform.
After Stan Musial had gone deep twice, Roy Campanella hit a tying, three-run drive in the ninth for his second of the game, and Don Zimmer followed with a walk-off single to lead the Brooklyn Dodgers over the St. Louis Cardinals 9-8 at Ebbets Field on June 21, 1956.
And Trout nearly hit a third. He flied out to Cody Bellinger in front of the center-field wall, leaving the bases loaded in the fourth inning after the Angels tied the score with four unearned runs following Caballero’s error on Trout’s leadoff grounder to shortstop.
Judge had looked forward to crossing paths with Trout in a Yankee Stadium weight room.
“I was going to talk some smack to him after the one he hit all the way to the warning track,” Judge said, “but I didn’t get a chance to and then he answers right back with two big homers for him. You put that guy in a clutch situation, a big moment and he’s going to show up every single time, so it’s fun going back and forth with a guy like that, especially in New York and the Bronx.”
New York had lost five straight after an 8-2 start and had been 0-6 in one-run games.
The game featured seven home runs that traveled a total of 2,846 feet — more than half a mile — with the Yankees hitting five. Judge’s first went 456 feet into the left-field bleachers and left his bat at 116.2 mph, the hardest-hit home run of the season.
Grisham and Trout each had five RBIs, and Judge had three.
Baseball’s top four active home run leaders were all in the game. Judge, with 374, moved one ahead of teammate Paul Goldschmidt. New York slugger Giancarlo Stanton, who leads active players with 454, missed a homer by about a foot and had to settle for a double off the center-field wall in the fifth. Trout has 408 homers.
Trout, 34, won AL MVPs in 2014, ’16 and ’19 but has struggled with injuries for much of the past five seasons.
“He’s the greatest of all time. It’s been fun to watch his whole career, coming up at such a young age and instantly just putting yourself at the top of the list. It’s special,” Judge said.
Judge, who turns 34 on April 26, won AL MVPs in 2022, ’24 and ’25.
“Those are two of the greats, so it’s really fun to watch,” Yankees starter Will Warren said.
Judge and Caballero each hit a two-run homer off Yusei Kikuchi for a 4-0 second-inning lead on an unseasonably warm 77-degree night. After Caballero’s error led to the unearned runs off Warren, Grisham pinch hit in the fifth and connected on a three-run homer against Shaun Anderson for a 7-4 lead.
Trout countered with a three-run homer in the sixth against Jake Bird, who was demoted to Triple-A after the game.
Judge’s homer off Anderson to lead off the bottom of the sixth gave him 47 multihomer games, one more than Mickey Mantle and trailing only Babe Ruth’s 68 among Yankees.
“To be surrounded by some greats like that, it’s special,” Judge said.
Josh Lowe knotted the score at 8-8 with a seventh-inning sacrifice fly, and Trout’s two-run drive in the eighth off Camilo Doval put the Angels ahead 10-8 with his 31st multihomer game. Judge, watching from right field, shook his head.
“Every time he comes to the Bronx, man, he puts on a show,” Judge said. “I hate to see it, but it’s fun competing against a guy like that.”
Jazz Chisholm Jr. singled to start the ninth against Romano, and Grisham reached down and pulled a slider into the right-field seats as the closer put both hands on his head.
Caballero doubled and stole third without a throw. And after Austin Wells walked, Caballero scored when Romano bounced a full-count slider to Ryan McMahon to the backstop on the ninth pitch of the plate appearance.
New York had not won a game while allowing double-digit runs since beating Minnesota 14-12 on July 23, 2019.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone described his feelings as “tough … for the belly.”
Then, he switched his thoughts to his players. “You get a lead, then you get another lead, and then it’s gone,” he said. “For the guys, maybe it was good to have a game like that where it was a little messy.”
