Yankees' Aaron Judge on Shohei Ohtani's torrid home run pace: 'Records are meant to be broken'

Ohtani has a shot to break Judge's American League single-season home run record this year

A year ago New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge swatted an incredible 62 homers, breaking Roger Maris' longstanding American League single-season home run record. Is it possible Judge's record will only stand for one year?

Shohei Ohtani, the Los Angeles Angels two-way superstar, enters play Thursday with 35 home runs in 97 team games, putting him on pace to hit 58 homers this season. That's not quite enough to break Judge's record, though he's certainly within striking distance. For what it's worth, Judge had 39 home runs through 97 team games a year ago.

How does Judge feel about Ohtani possibly breaking his record? Here's what he told MLB.com on Wednesday, prior to the Yankees' series finale with the Angels at Angel Stadium:

"Records are meant to be broken," Judge said on Wednesday. "It's just a record. It'll be exciting for the game if he went out there and got 63-plus. We'll see what happens."

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"It's incredible. It's fun to watch," Judge said. "I don't like watching it in person, when he's playing against us, doing what he's doing, but it's fun when you can turn on the TV and see that he's throwing eight innings, striking out 10 and hitting two homers in a game.

"I'm excited what he's done so far and looking forward to what else he does when we get out of town here."

Judge added he's "still got quite a few years left in this game ... If he breaks (my record), that'll give me another opportunity to go out there and try to do something special."

To break Judge's record, Ohtani will need to hit at least 28 home runs in the Angels' final 65 games, or one every 2.32 games. One every 10 plate appearances, give or take. It's doable, and one hot streak will boost his odds -- Ohtani has 19 homers in his last 33 games, which certainly qualifies as hot -- though it won't be easy. There's a reason 60-plus homers is so rare.

Ohtani owns a .306/.397/.678 batting line with those 35 home runs this season. He's also thrown 105 1/3 innings with a 3.50 ERA and 139 strikeouts. He leads all players with 6.5 WAR and would rank third among all players with 4.4 WAR just as a hitter.

After sweeping Judge's Yankees, the Angels are 49-48 and 4.5 games behind the third and final wild-card spot. If they're further back at the deadline, they'll have to seriously consider trading Ohtani.