Five months into the 2021 season, the are 76-55 with a plus-51 run differential. They've won 20 of their last 26 games to surge from two games behind the second wild card spot to two games up on the wild card spot. , if you can believe that. . Now here are three new notable Yankees trends. NYY RF #99 Despite being a big name Yankees player, 's all-around excellence sort of flies under the radar. We've all seen the monster home runs, and they're certainly a huge part of his game, but Judge is also a superb defender (second only to in defensive runs saved among outfielders since 2017) with tremendous innate hitting ability. A career .277 batting average despite a career 30.1 percent strikeout rate is a testament to Judge's raw hitting talent. Judge is a ma sive human (listed at 6-foot-7 and 282 pounds) with long arms, so strikeouts and swings and mi ses will always be part of his game. He has a large strike zone and it's difficult to have a compact swing at that size. That's just the way it is. This year though, Judge owns the lowest strikeout (25.6 percent) and Caris LeVert Jersey swing-and-mi s (11.8 percent) rates of his career, and it's not close either. His previous career lows in a 162-game season were 30.5 percent strikeouts in 2018 and 13.1 percent swings and mi ses in 2017. There are three explanations for Judge's improved strikeout rate. First, this is his fifth full season in the big leagues, so he has more experience. Talent plus experience often leads to improved results, and in Judge's case, the improvement is (in part) showing up in his strikeout rate. Second, Judge has been a little more aggre sive early in the count. He's seen 4.20 pitches per plate appearance this year, a career low and south of his 4.33 pitches per plate appearance rate from 2017-20. And three, Judge is doing a better job fouling away pitcher's pitches. His swing rates have held remarkably steady over the years. He's swinging at pitches in and out of the zone at the same rate, though his contact rate on pitches out of the zone is way up, from 32.2 percent from 2017-20 to 45.5 percent in 2021. Instead of swinging through pitcher's pitches off Jordan Bowden Jersey the plate, Judge is fouling them away, and keeping at-bats alive. This at-bat from this past weekend is a pretty good example: went after Judge with changeup after changeup, and the 1-0 changeup that went for a called strike on the outside corner forced Judge to protect against the 2-2 changeup that was just off the plate. Rather than swing through that changeup and strike out, Judge fouled it off, kept the at-bat alive, then socked a three-run home run on the next pitch, when Manaea NBA Brooklyn Nets Jeresy finally caught too much of the plate with one of those changeups intended to be just out of reach. Fantasy Baseball Today Newsletter Your Cheat Code To Fantasy Baseball You're destined to gain an edge over your friends with advice from the award-winning FBT crew. I agree to receive the "Fantasy Baseball Today Newsletter" and marketing communications, updates, special offers (including partner offers), and other information from CBS Sports and the Paramount family of companies. By pre sing sign up, I confirm that I have read and agree to the . Please check the opt-in box to acknowledge that you would like to subscribe. Thanks for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox. Sorry! There was an error proce sing your subscription. Judge remains the game's premier exit-velocity hitter. He led baseball in average exit velocity in 2017 (94.9 mph), 2018 (94.7 mph), and 2019 (96.0 mph), and he's doing it again in 2021 (95.7 mph mph). When Judge connects, he hits the ball very hard, and good things happen when you hit the ball hard. Now that Judge is striking out le s often, he's having his best season since his historic rookie year in 2017. As good as he's been throughout his career, this is the best version of Judge we've seen since that rookie season." Landry Shamet Jersey I feel like this year -- and obviously he's been pretty hot lately -- but he's had le s stretches where he carries us and le s of those couple weeks where he really struggles," Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters, , this past weekend. "I think he's probably playing at his best right now. He's physically in a good place. Really focused from a game-planning standpoint. He has a really good idea each and every day of what he's looking for in the box. I feel like he's executing his plan in the box. He's playing really well." NYY 3B #14 , we chronicled the base-running misadventures that plagued the Yankees during their disappointing start. At the time they ranked dead last in stolen bases, stolen base attempts, extra-base taken rate, outs on the bases, advanced base-running metrics, you name it. If it quantified baserunning, the Yankees were truly terrible at it earlier this season. Much like the rest of their season, the Yankees have turned things around on the bases in the second half, and not by a little bit either. They've been one of the base-running teams in baseball since the All-Star break. It's Brooklyn Nets Hats a shocking turnaround. Here are a few base-running numbers: First halfSecond halfStolen bases 20 (30th in ) 34 (4th)Stolen base attempts 25 (30th) 41 (4th)FanGraphs baserunning minus-12.0 runs (30th)plus-3.0 (6th)The Yankees took the extra base (first-to-third on a single, etc.) only 30 percent of the time when we last checked in on their baserunning on June 8. They've since raised their season rate to 36 percent, which is still comfortably below the 40 percent league average, but is much better overall. The Yankees are over 40 percent since June 8. The second half stolen base total is partly a function of personnel. Nineteen of those 34 steals belong to (nine), (five), (three), (one), and (one). Wade is the utility infielder who was pre sed into duty Chris Chiozza Jersey when and got hurt earlier this month. The other four were Triple-A call ups to help cover during the team's injuries and recent COVID-19 outbreak, and all but Velazquez have since been sent back down. Those fill-in players have inflated the stolen base total, undoubtedly, but they're not the only Yankees stealing bases. Torres went 6 for 7 stealing bases after the All-Star break before going on the injured list Aug. 8 (he jammed his thumb sliding into second on a steal attempt, ironically enough). Even Judge is stealing bases. He is 5 for 6 since the All-Star break. "I love it," Wade recently told reporters, , when asked about the increase in stolen bases. "It's a different part of the game that we're used to playing, but anytime I can do that, or whether it's or Andrew, even Judgy now stealing some bases. So yeah, it's been fun, that's for sure." Not every stolen base leads to a run, but several did during New York's recent 13-game winning streak. Most notably, Wade stole second and moved to third on a throwing error in the eigh