The Yankees may have to go spiritual to save Aaron Judge in this World Series

We're not quite at the point where it would be helpful if one of the city's priests took it upon themselves to repair Aaron Judge.

Not yet.

But then again, it probably wouldn't hurt.

You know the story, right? In 1952, Gil Hodges went 0-21 against the Yankees in the World Series. The next season he suffered from one of the worst hangover spells ever. Father Herbert Raymond, a 44-year-old parish priest at St. Francis.

On a particularly hot Sunday, instead of preaching, Father Raymond told his congregation, “Go home and keep the commandments. And say a prayer for Gil Hodges.”

Soon after, Hodges returned to his usual Hall of Fame form.

Every little bit helps.

Judge is now approaching the place where he could use some help. He could use a boost. He entered Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday night with a slash line of .167/.304/.361. He struck out 16 times in 36 at-bats. And Saturday didn't get any better: 0-for-4, three more strikeouts and a remarkably empty-netter in the ninth inning as they tried to come back before settling for a 4-2 loss.

And look: players have a decline in performance at any time of the year. And really good players had their difficulties in October. Gil Hodges proved that. The same goes for Barry Bonds. Same goes for Alex Rodriguez. It happens. It's baseball. Baseball is maddening for many reasons, and most importantly, it's impossible to explain why great players become stone-cold in the game.

The Judge we see now bears no resemblance to the Judge we've seen all year, unless you're talking about the Judge who died on May 2nd after 33 games with a slash line – .197/. 331/.393 – woke up looks awfully similar to the one he's wearing now.

You may have heard: Judge recovers.

It goes without saying that he needs to make a similar resurgence in what's left of this series. Look, after two games, both teams' stars have all delivered big moments – Juan Soto (another home run Saturday night) and Giancarlo Stanton, Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

The judge is the one who was weak.

And the Yankees simply won't be able to close the now two-game deficit against a team as good as the Dodgers if their best player doesn't start playing like the best player.

There were a lot of jokes this year about the Yankees being a two-man team, Soto and Judge, and obviously that wasn't true because two-man teams don't finish in first place. Teams of two don't get seven playoff wins in nine games.

But that doesn't mean the Yankees don't get their confidence and swagger, knowing Soto and Judge wait on opposing pitchers four and five times per game. Entire game plans are based on this hard lineup truth, and for good reason. They have been a reliably ferocious two-man game all year long.

Must happen now.

Must return to the Bronx when the Yankees do. The Yankees can win without Judge at his best, but they certainly wouldn't want to try it too often, especially not as often as four times in the next five games, which is the mission now.

Maybe what's needed is a change of scenery and the absolute electric business that Yankee Stadium promises to be when the series resumes on Monday. Maybe it wouldn't be so terrible if the public address speaker, Paul Olden, introduced Judge, there was more verve behind the greeting than usual. Maybe the same applies when the Bleacher creatures clear their throats at the beginning of the first part.

Perhaps, as Aaron Boone has pointed out, whenever Judge collapses, it takes forever, and with good reason: “One blow to change everything.”

Perhaps.

And maybe there are men (and women) in the industry who would like to help. As we saw, it couldn't hurt.