The Aaron Judge Show continued in The Bronx on Friday.
And he had plenty of company, as the Yankees continued to roll in front of a sellout crowd.
The center fielder went deep for the sixth time in 11 games in the bottom of the first to set the tone for Friday’s 4-2 win over the brutal White Sox, as the Yankees won for the fifth straight time and improved to 11-2 over their last 13.
Judge also scored on an Alex Verdugo double in the fourth and the Yankees added a run on Giancarlo Stanton’s leadoff homer in the sixth.
It was all more than enough for Nestor Cortes, who allowed just an unearned run over seven innings in his best start in nearly a month.
With the victory, the Yankees improved to 9-1 against the JV portion of their schedule, the AL Central.
As is usually the case these days, both blasts from Judge and Stanton made their mark.
Judge’s solo homer was a 433-shot blast that ended up in the second deck in left, measured at 114.4 mph.
Judge’s 12th homer gave him seven hits in his previous eight at-bats- seven for extra-bases.
He managed to scare most of the Stadium, though, with an ill-advised diving attempt on a Tommy Pham liner to open the eighth, which went for a double.
Stanton’s home run, his 10th on the season, went 417 feet and clocked in at 116.2 mph.
The victory came as the Yankees opened a 10-game homestand.
After sweeping the Twins in Minnesota, the Yankees faced the last-place White Sox — though Chicago entered having won six of its last eight and 11-8 since a mind-bogglingly bad 3-22 start to the season.
They looked more like the historically dreadful team on Friday than the recently-improved version.
The White Sox had a chance to go ahead in the fourth after Corey Julks’ one-out double.
But Julks foolishly took off for third on a routine comebacker to Cortes by Danny Mendick and was thrown out easily.
And Zach Remillard managed to get picked off second base for the second out in the fifth.
Cortes was excellent and efficient. He pitched around a pair of singles in the first before the White Sox tied the game with an unearned run in the third.
Remillard reached on a two-base throwing error by third baseman Oswaldo Cabrera to start the inning and then stole third as Cabrera couldn’t handle a bounced throw from Austin Wells.
He scored on a single by Andrew Vaughn.
Ian Hamilton entered in the eighth and allowed the double to Pham and then another RBI single to Vaughn to cut the Yankees’ lead to 4-2.
A pinch-hit double by Gavin Sheets sent Vaughn to third and forced Caleb Ferguson into the game.
Fortunately for the Yankees, Andrew Benintendi, who has the worst WAR in the majors among qualified hitters according to Fangraphs, was up next and the former Yankee whiffed before Ferguson got Julks to line out to right before Clay Holmes continued his dominance with a scoreless ninth for his 13th save.