MLB world misses real story amid predictable overreaction to Aaron Judge's tough night

Five at-bats. That is all it took.

Aaron Judge comes into the clubhouse after going 0-5 with four strikeouts on Opening Day, and of course, the conversation begins. What is going on with him? Is this indicative of what we should expect for the remainder of the season?

It took five at-bats.

This is the part where each year it feels a bit ridiculous. The stat line, of course, is just the stat line. Even the best hitters in the game can have a night where it just feels like nothing is clicking. Mechanics are a bit off, the fastball is a tick faster and the breaking balls that appear they will be miss by a mile end up in the zone. These things happen in baseball.

What makes no sense is how one night can quickly turn into a season long, holistic evaluation by both the fans and the media.

Because if there is any player we have ever seen prove that Opening Day does not mean absolutely anything, it is Judge.

Just look at the career and it should tell you the story. Opening days tend to be quiet for him. Sure, he had a couple of years where he hit home runs. But there have also been several with strikeouts and periods of being a bit off. Then he hits bombs the next few weeks and is launching baseballs into the second deck. His MVP year in 2022 did not kick off wonderfully, and yet, as the season went on, it absolutely erupted.

And still, year after year, we have fallen into this trap. Not just with Judge, but with every one of our favorite superstars and faces of franchises.

With Judge in particular, part of that is the light that comes with being a Yankee. The spotlight is bigger in New York. Plus, the fact that he is the face of the Yankees and the first name on most fans minds helps make any bad box score look like it is carrying more weight. That applies to the face of any team as they are all put under the microscope the second that Opening Day starts.

There is just one more piece to the story here.

In this case, the Yankees beat the Giants. And it was not a close win where they barely hung on until the end. They handled their business comfortably. The lineup was producing. Scoring was not an issue. The entire panic is rendered pointless when you realize that the team managed to accomplish everything it needed to without its biggest name chipping in.

In previous years, that would have been the actual story. Not whether Judge would come out of a slow night, but whether the Yankees could function without him carrying them. If this current lineup can get it done when Judge is not there to pick up the slack, even just for one night, that is a bigger story than his four strikeouts in March.

Nevertheless, the cycle continues.

A poor opener leads to panic. By mid-May, if Judge is hitting .300 with power numbers that we are all accustomed to, everyone quietly forgets that any of it ever happened.

Until next Opening Day, of course.

Fans are excited on Opening Day. It is the first look at the new season. But there is a substantial difference between noticing something and concluding what it means.

Judge had a bad night. Not a trend or a warning. Just a bad night that happened to be on a day where everyone in baseball is watching with a slightly amplified lens.

And somehow, that is all it takes to start the cycle anew.