Judge and Jury? Blue Jays miffed at Yankees slugger's wandering eyes prior to home run

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If the eyes have it, is something not right?

The Blue Jays certainly smelled a rat at the Rogers Centre on Monday night following an eighth-inning home run  by Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, his second of the game, in a 7-4 Bronx Bombers win.

Video replays prior to the mighty 462-foot homer off of Jays reliever Jay Jackson show Judge’s eyes shifting and locking in a stare into what looked to be the Yankees dugout. The Jays certainly felt that something wasn’t right and will further look at the situation prior to Game 2 of the four-game series on Tuesday.

“I saw it,”  said Jays manager John Schneider, who was later than usual to his post-game media availability after no doubt reviewing the eighth-inning incident. “Kind of odd that a hitter would be looking in that direction. He’s obviously looking in that direction for a reason and (we will) dive into it a little more tonight and tomorrow and make sure we’re doing everything we can to make ourselves susceptible to tendencies.

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“But yeah, it was kind of odd to see him looking over there right before a pitch came.”

When pressed on the Judge at-bat — which also included Yankees manager Aaron Boone getting ejected for arguing balls and strikes — Schneider didn’t back down from his suspicions.

“I’m not the calibre of hitter Aaron Judge is and never was, but he’s obviously looking somewhere besides the pitcher for a reason at that point in time in his at-bat,” Schneider said.

Initially, Jackson thought he made a good pitch to one of the best hitters in the game, a view that quickly changed when the inning ended.

“When I came back to the dugout, (one of the coaches) told me: ‘You’re going to be pissed when you see the video,'” Jackson said. “He said they are tipping pitches.”

After the game, Jackson looked closer, especially after the growing fuss over the incident was pointed out to him by his fiance.

“I really haven’t seen hitters do that,” Jackson said. “I can’t say what he was doing. We’ll see what plays out from this and next time we’ll have a different game plan.

“I’m not going to say anything against any organization … but for him to be peeking over for that amount of time, it seemed like it wasn’t just a glance and re-adjusting your eyes to get back on the pitcher.”

When asked about the situation following the game, Judge played coy.

“I saw a lot of chirping from our dugout, which I didn’t really like in that situation, where it’s a 6-0 game,” Judge said. “I was trying to save (manager Aaron Boone). Like: ‘Hold up here, let me work here.’ I was kind of trying to see who was chirping in the dugout. Like who’s still talking here? It’s 6-0. Let’s go back to playing some ball.”