Albert Pujols’ first 10 seasons were as close to ideal as any player has ever experienced – a full-time player from day one, no significant time lost to injury or labor issues or global conflict or global pandemic, a start at a very young age, eye-popping numbers throughout. That confluence of opportunity with his brilliant brand of batting led to numbers that are still breathtaking, among them 408 home runs and a 172 OPS+. The longball tally is unmatched for any player’s first decade in the big leagues (he also claims the most extra-base hits and total bases); the OPS+ resides just outside the top 10, tied for the 11th best.
Aaron Judge – with a little more than a month remaining in his 10th campaign – hasn’t experienced the same narrative; a cup of coffee in his first year, a few seasons contending with a significant loss in games, due to injury/Covid-19, a debut that saw him three years older than Pujols was for his. In all, the cumulative, counting numbers don’t measure up Pujols’, but the rate at which he’s leveled up against the competition elevates his first decade into a tier that not even Pujols could match.
Aaron Judge was 2-for-4 with a home run and a hit by pitch – this night folded into career tallies that reference 356 home runs and a 177 career OPS+. Both figures are top-10 marks for all players ever through their first 10 seasons (Judge is the only player in the top 10 in both of these categories for this condition).
Most HR Through First 10 Years
408 Albert Pujols
370 Eddie Mathews
369 Ralph Kiner
356 Aaron Judge
354 Adam Dunn
350 Ken Griffey, Jr.
345 Álex Rodríguez
342 Henry Aaron
338 Mark Teixeira
335 Ernie Banks
Highest OPS+ Through First 10 Years (min. 3,000 PA)
218 Babe Ruth
196 Oscar Charleston
190 Ted Williams
185 Dan Brouthers
182 Ty Cobb
182 Lou Gehrig
180 Rogers Hornsby
177 Aaron Judge
176 Mike Trout
173 Jimmie Foxx
Judge was part of a six-homer barrage for the Yankees in an 11-2 win, with Cody Bellinger going yard for his 25th of the year and Trent Grisham contributing his 26th of the campaign. New York now has four players with at least 25 (Judge is at 41 and Jazz Chisholm, Jr. holds at 25). The franchise had enjoyed five previous seasons in which they had at least four players achieve this mark, with the 2009, 2018 and 2019 clubs having five and the 1938 and 2010 teams having four. On this roster, Ben Rice, who also homered on Wednesday, is closest to joining the 25-homer club, with 22 round-trippers.
Nick Kurtz singled twice and drew a walk to shift his slash line to .309/.401/.634 in 390 plate appearances. All-time, first-year players who accumulated at least 400 plate appearances and finished their debut season with a .300/.400/.500 slash line can be counted on two hands; the list of them to do it in an age-season as young as (or younger than) Kurtz requires just one. Here’s the entire list, organized by age, with Kurtz inserted into the group.
| Player | Season | Age-Season | Average | OB% | SLG% |
| Ted Williams | 1939 | 20 | .327 | .436 | .609 |
| Albert Pujols | 2001 | 21 | .329 | .403 | .610 |
| Jimmy Williams | 1899 | 22 | .354 | .416 | .530 |
| Charlie Keller | 1939 | 22 | .334 | .447 | .500 |
| Austin Kearns | 2002 | 22 | .315 | .407 | .500 |
| Nick Kurtz | 2025 | 22 | .309 | .401 | .634 |
| Paul Waner | 1926 | 23 | .336 | .413 | .528 |
| Johnny Mize | 1936 | 23 | .329 | .402 | .577 |
| Mitchell Page | 1977 | 25 | .307 | .405 | .521 |
| George Watkins | 1930 | 30 | .373 | .415 | .621 |
A day after homering twice and driving in four runs, Ozzie Albies homered and drove in five. Dating back to 1901, Albies is the 17th Brave to have back-to-back games with at least one home run and at least four RBI and the second member of the franchise to do it this season, after Albies himself about five weeks ago. Wally Berger (one streak in 1934, a second in 1935) also shows up twice among the 17.
Speaking of big days at the plate for the Braves’ franchise, leadoff hitter Jurickson Profar homered twice and also drew three walks while scoring four runs. In the Modern Era, he’s the second Brave to hit at the top of the order and assemble a line featuring numbers in these home run/times on base/runs categories, after Sam Jethroe in 1952, when the center fielder was 3-for-3 with a double and two walks accompanying two longballs and four runs scored.
Michael Harris II homered and singled for the Braves, pushing his OPS in this season’s second half to 1.008; this after a first half of a .551. Dating back to 1993, there is no player who had a valley and peak first half/second half to such a degree that he posted an OPS below .600 in the first half and a mark of at last 1.000 after the break (using minimums of 250 plate appearances for a first half and 200 in a second half).
In Boston’s 3-2 win, Ceddanne Rafaela doubled and produced a two-run home run in the ninth, giving him seven games this season with at least one double and one longball; this is tied for the fourth most in the Majors (and is the most for the Red Sox). The Athletics’ Shea Langeliers leads, with nine, while his teammate Nick Kurtz and Kansas City’s Vinnie Pasquantino are tied for the second most, with eight apiece. Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber, New York’s Aaron Judge, Detroit’s Riley Greene and Minnesota’s Byron Buxton also have seven.
Twins leadoff hitter Byron Buxton opened the first with a home run and added another solo shot later on for his 16th career multi-homer effort. Buxton is tied with Kent Hrbek for the sixth most in franchise history, with Bob Allison (17), Roy Sievers (18) Tony Oliva (18) and Justin Morneau (20) within reach. After that, Harmon Killebrew’s franchise best 45 looms large and quite a distance away. Buxton has led off a game with a home run seven times this season, still a decent distance from Jacque Jones’ franchise best of 11 in 2002.
Baltimore’s Dylan Beavers continued his early-career magic, going 2-for-2 with a double and walk to push his OPS through his first 10 games to 1.038 in 40 plate appearances (the 24-year-old outfielder has amassed 18 total bases with five extra-base hits and eight walks so far). The Browns/Orioles franchise offers up a list of four names who emerged from their 10th career game with a higher OPS (minimum 30 plate appearances), a body of work headlined by Trey Mancini’s 1.251 in 2016-2017. Between Mancini and Beavers, the residents are Sig Gryska (1.107 in 1938-1939), Bob Nieman (1.078 in 1951) and Red Kress (1.049 in 1927-1928).
Kyle Manzardo’s single in the bottom of the 10th gave Cleveland a 4-3 win and the DH his third walk-off hit of the season – the most for any player for the franchise since Jim Thome had three in 2001.
Nolan McLean (8.0 IP, 4 H) improved to 3-0 in three career appearances as he led the way in the Mets’ 6-0 win over the Phillies. The right-hander is the first Met to record a win in each of his first three games and during the span of the franchise’s existence (since 1962), is one of 37 pitchers across the Majors to start and win each of their first three. With a 0.89 ERA for his efforts, McLean’s mark slots in as the fourth lowest among the 37, behind Andrew Abbott’s 0.00 in 2023, Wayne Simpson’s 0.36 in 1970 and Tanner Houck’s 0.53 in 2020.
In the Mets’ victory, Mark Vientos drove in three runs to extend his RBI-streak to six games. The third baseman is the 56th Met to have a streak extend to at least six games, with Mike Piazza’s 15-gamer in 2000 the longest (Piazza’s streak is the second longest for any player in the Modern Era, behind Ray Grimes’ 17-game streak for the Cubs in 1922).
Salvador Perez homered and doubled and drove in three runs for the Royals in a 12-1 win.
~The three RBI lifted Perez’s career production to 993 and moved him past Amos Otis (992 RBI) into third place on the Royals’ all-time list, behind George Brett (1,596) and Hal McRae (1,012).
~Perez’s 993 career RBI accompany 296 home runs. He’s in the company of 112 others who reached/surpassed these two numbers through an age-35 season, but only five of them share a profile of also having at least 1,000 games behind the plate: Yogi Berra, Johnny Bench, Gary Carter, Lance Parrish and Mike Piazza.
~This season, Perez has 55 extra-base hits (32 doubles and 23 home runs), which is a rare level for a player this old and with this much time devoted to crouching behind the plate …
Most XBH, Age-35 or Older Season, at Least 50% of Games at Catcher
63 Jorge Posada (2007)
61 Carlton Fisk (1985)
56 Carlton Fisk (1983)
55 Salvador Perez (2025)
52 Jorge Posada (2006)
In the Rangers’ 20-3 win over the Angels, Texas received five-RBI contributions from Joc Pederson, Adolis García and Kyle Higashioka. The franchise had one previous occasion to celebrate such a widespread effort: on April 19, 1996, the club received five-RBI games from Kevin Elster, Juan González and Dean Palmer. Three is also the top limit for any club since 1901, with the Rangers’ two joining eight other occasions.
~In this romp, 12 different Rangers collected at least one hit, which also tied a high mark for the franchise, this one coming from a game against the Mariners on September 23, 1986.
Rafael Devers posted his 21st career multi-home run game , this one coming at the age of 28 years and 307 days. For multi-homer games before turning 29, Devers is tied with Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Dave Kingman, Todd Helton, Mark Teixeira and Miguel Cabrera for the 37th most. At the top: a quadrumvirate made up of Jimmie Foxx, Eddie Mathews, Ken Griffey, Jr. and Álex Rodríguez, each with 36.
Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.
Roger Schlueter
As Sr. Editorial Director for Major League Baseball Productions from 2004-2015, Roger served as a hub for hundreds of hours of films, series, documentaries and features: as researcher, fact-checker, script doctor, and developer of ideas. The years at MLB Production gave him the ideal platform to pursue what galvanized him the most – the idea that so much of what takes place on the field during the MLB regular and postseason (and is forever beautifully condensed into a box score) has connections to what has come before. Unearthing and celebrating these webs allows baseball to thrive, for the present can come alive and also reignite the past.