Aaron Judge: New York Yankees star hits two homers in win vs. Baltimore Orioles

Sept. 15 (UPI) -- It appears that Aaron Judge has returned to his extraterrestrial status, after smacking two home runs Thursday for the New York Yankees.

Judge, 25, went 15 games without a home run at the end of August. He broke that streak on Sept. 3. With two home runs in Thursday's game against the Baltimore Orioles, Judge now has four long balls in his last four games.

He started his show Thursday by first hitting a 3-run bomb off of Orioles righty Mike Wright.

Judge stepped into the box in the bottom of the fourth inning. He took two balls before taking a hack for a swing-and-miss on an 89.4 mph slider. He belted Wright's fourth offering, a 96.7 mph four-seam fastball, into the right center field seats.

The slugger returned in the bottom of the sixth inning for home run No. 43 of the season. This time, Judge stepped in to face Orioles righty Richard Rodriguez. He didn't wait to take hits best swing in that at-bat. Judge swatted a 93.4 mph first pitch offering to left center field to plate three more runs for the Yankees, giving his team a 12-2 lead.

Gary Sanchez went yard for a solo shot in the next at-bat to give the Pinstripes back-to-back home runs.

Judge turned in a 3-for-4 line, with six RBI and three runs scored. He is now hitting .277 on the season. He also leads the American League with 112 runs scored, 110 walks and a league-high 193 strikeouts.

"I think the first one he hit was a lot like what he did in the first half--right center," Yankees manager Joe Girardi told reporters, according to NJ.com. "Both of them were hit extremely hard and were fairly low. The second one was a line drive that ended up going 430, 440 feet. He just had good at-bats, good night -- really good night. It got the ball rolling for us."

The Yankees (80-66) look to parlay their 13-5 win into the second game of the four-game series against the Orioles at 7:05 p.m. Friday at Yankee Stadium.

Judge has 11 home runs in his last 16 games against the Orioles.

"He owns that team," teammate Didi Gregorius told MLB.com about Judge. "He's had good numbers against other teams, but 11 home runs is a lot."