Aaron Judge blasted his 16th home run of the young MLB season back on May 10 in a 4–3 loss to the Brewers that dropped the Yankees out of first place in the American League East. He woke up the next morning as the AL leader in both homers and RBIs. It looked as though he was on track for another historically great offensive season. Yet it's baseball, and the next slump is always lurking just off screen to frustrate even the most accomplished hitters. Judge now finds himself in the longest RBI drought of his career as he's gone 10 contests without plating a run. This has happened to him three times previously, but he's never gone 11 games without driving in a run. A 4-for-31 stretch at the dish over the last eight games has driven his batting average down to .250. On Wednesday, Judge struck out four times, a night after he fanned three times against Blue Jays pitching. Overall he went 1-for-15 with eight strikeouts against Toronto.Not that it really matters but Judge has fallen out of the home run lead as Munetaka Murakami of the White Sox now has 17. He is no longer in the top 10 of the AL in RBIs either, as many have passed him while he's stuck in neutral. Now, it's definitely not time to panic. Despite all this Judge still carries a .936 OPS on the year and he's one hot streak away from once again being at the top of most of the power hitting leaderboards. Asked about his slugger's struggles after the latest Yankees loss on Thursday night, manager Aaron Boone had some bold words."Just going through it a little bit right now," he said. "Usually that means good things are coming on the other side, He'll get through it and somebody will pay the price real soon."Aaron Boone on the struggles of Aaron Judge at the plate vs. Toronto"Just going through it a little bit right now. Usually that means good things are coming on the other side. He'll get through it and somebody will pay the price real soon" pic.twitter.com/X0lyNCwGyg— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) May 22, 2026It's easy to say something like that about one of the best offensive weapons in baseball who is charting a Hall of Fame career. If history is any guide then Boone is going to look smart for saying this. But the fact of the matter is the Yankees still very much need Judge, even with the emergence of Ben Rice as a reliable Robin to No. 99's Batman. New York has gone 4-6 amid Judge's dry spell. Combine that with the Rays' red-hot play and the pinstripes now find themselves 4 1/2 games out of first place. Immediately breaking out of the slump would be an added bonus as Tampa Bay visits the Bronx on Friday to begin a weekend series. More MLB from Sports IllustratedAdd us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow