Aaron Judge breaks through Dodger Stadium gate for wild catch

Aaron Judge has smashed a number of bullpens for the New York Yankees during his career, but he did it literally on Saturday against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

With a Yankees holding onto a 5-3 lead over the Dodgers in eighth inning, Dodgers designated hitter J.D. Martinez hit what looked like at least a double with a man on first. Reaching second would have put the tying run in scoring position for the Dodgers with zero outs. In fact, it would have been a home run in 17 of 30 MLB parks, per Baseball Savant.

Instead, Judge raced back, leaped to make the catch and slammed his 282-pound body into the gate of the Dodger Stadium road bullpen.

Trainer briefly checked on Judge to make sure he was OK (running into bullpen gates is famously hard on the shoulder), but he remained in the game to finish off a 5-3 Yankees win.

Noted Yankee fan and frequent Los Angeles visitor Spike Lee seemed pretty amped after the play:

The catch left the Dodgers with Max Muncy on second and none out. Reliever Michael King proceeded to get Chris Taylor and Miguel Vargas out to end the inning the Yankees' lead still in tact.

Two innings earlier, Judge had connected on his 19th home run of the season to extend his American League lead. Only Pete Alonso of the New York Mets has more long balls this season.

All of that figures to boost Judge's campaign for a second straight AL MVP award.

In 213 plate appearances this season, the gargantuan outfielder is hitting .291/.404/.674, not far off from last year's record-breaking year. He was particularly scorching last month, winning AL Player of the Month honors after hitting .342/.474/.882 with 12 home runs and 25 RBI in 21 games.

And in case you were wondering, Judge's current pace of 19 home runs in 49 games played would put him on pace for 58.5 if he played all the Yankees' 102 remaining games. If that hot streak really continues into June, we could be looking at another home run chase despite Judge spending part of May on the injured list.