WATCH: Yankees' Aaron Judge homers in first at-bat of 2023 MLB season
It took just two pitches for all of Yankee Stadium to rise, as Aaron Judge picked up right where he left off following a historic 62-home run, MVP season.
Judge homered off San Francisco Giants starter Logan Webb in his first at-bat of the 2023 season to give the Yanks an early 1-0 lead on Opening Day in the Bronx.
The slugger immediately showed why he was worth the massive nine-year, $360 million deal that he signed during the offseason to stay in New York.
After the team's 5-0 Opening Day win, manager Aaron Boone had high praise for Judge's first-inning blast and said it "was very fitting" that he was the one "to set the tone" early on in the season.
"Wow," Boone said. "I mean that's about as tough of a guy as you're going to do it against right on right, Webb's going to keep you in the ballpark. To get a ball up like that and to hit it out on a cold day, dead center, not only is a difficult chore in and of itself. To get us a shot right there in the first and kind of let Gerrit [Cole] go take it from there... Yeah to set the tone for us like that, especially after the offseason and signing back and captain, for him to kind of get us rolling was very fitting."
Boone added: "More impressive that he just comes up and does it first AB against that particular pitcher. I just kind of said to him an inning later, 'Really?' And he just kind of smiled. More impressed with just the craft of it all."
