One day after excusing a Shannon Sharpe blunder by citing his own mistakes, Stephen A. Smith made a notable error about the New York Yankees.
Smith briefly put the Dallas Cowboys chatter on hold to tantalize fans with a very rare baseball segment Wednesday morning on First Take. Aaron Judge chasing down 60 home runs for the second time in his career while Shohei Ohtani closes in on the first 50/50 season in Major League Baseball history was worthy of some national attention.
But as everyone marvels over Judge’s historic home run pace for the Yankees this season, Stephen A. Smith thinks he figured it the reason for his success.
Stephen A. Smith said that Juan Soto hitting behind Aaron Judge plays a role in why Judge’s numbers are so good pic.twitter.com/kBkwrzDssO
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) August 28, 2024
“But you do got Juan Soto batting behind you. They can’t get around you a little bit,” Smith said as baseball aficionado Christopher ‘Mad Dog’ Russo appeared to bite his tongue on First Take. “They gotta pitch to the brother, you understand what I’m saying, because you’ve got Soto waiting in the wings. So, all of those things facilitate Aaron Judge being who he is.”
How has no one thought about the fact that Juan Soto hitting behind Judge might be helping the $360 million slugger in his quest for a second 60-home run season? Probably because Soto hits in front of Judge, not behind him.
And it’s not even like Judge just bats behind Soto most of the time. He bats behind Soto every time. Soto hit second in each of his 130 starts for the Yankees this season. Judge has batted third in every one of his 132 starts for the Yankees this season and his lack of lineup protection only enhances how impressive his performance has been.
As Smith told Shannon Sharpe Tuesday morning on First Take, he’s made his share of mistakes. There was the time he forgot Quentin Grimes was no longer on the New York Knicks. The time he forgot Hank Steinbrenner was dead. And the time he shared his excitement to watch Hunter Henry on Thursday Night Football, despite the tight end spending the season on the PUP list.
While we undoubtedly like to point out his gaffes, considering the amount of takes Smith gives on ESPN in a day, week, month, year and career, his track record is still kind of impressive. But this is one was just so easy to avoid. Smith could have picked literally any lineup featuring Judge and Soto and debunked his theory before presenting it on national TV.
