CHICAGO — Aaron Judge noticed his teammates dancing in the bullpen when he entered for the first inning. He got a good reception when he crossed the plate, too.

Not only did he hit his 300th home run, the New York Yankees’ leading scorer reached the milestone faster than any other player when he hit a home run against the Chicago White Sox in the team’s 10-2 win on Wednesday night.

“It’s a great accomplishment,” Judge said. “As I said a couple of days ago, I was hoping it would come with a win. It came with a great win for us. We were down for a while, we couldn’t get much done, so I was really excited that he was there in a big moment.”

Judge recorded his 955th career hit and 3,431st strikeout when he struck out three runs in the eighth inning. The six-time All-Star and 2022 American League Most Valuable Player drove a hard ball from Chad Cole into the White Sox bullpen in left for his 43rd career hit.

Yankees players got their imaginations running when the ball went over the wall, jumping up, raising their arms and hitting the outfield fence. After the game, DJ LeMayo and Austin Wells sprayed Judge with a tub of water.

“It means a lot,” the judge said. “These guys work with me every day. I know the hard work they put in. They see what I do. It was pretty special.”

Ralph Kiner hit 300 homers in his 1,087th game, and Babe Ruth did it in his 3,831st game.

“These are some of the players who have done a lot of great things in this game,” Judge said. “You throw a lot of these names out to people who don’t know baseball and they know who they are. It’s a special group to be in.”

Chicago was trailing 6-2 when interim coach Grady Sizemore intentionally walked Juan Soto to bring in Judge, who had not hit a home run in a 3-0 game since 2021 and now has three home runs in his career.

“I was angry about the intentional walk, so that fired me up,” Judge said. “Usually when it’s 3-0, I’d pick up the ball, see the ball, and then pass it to the next player. But in a situation like this, if they don’t want to throw the ball to you, you have to act like it.”

Judge leads the major leagues with 14 intentional walks. Soto was intentionally walked for the first time this season after hitting three home runs on Tuesday and another in the first inning on Wednesday.

“It was locked in your mind, but I understand why he did it,” Judge said. “Given the way Juan was swinging the bat and what he did in this series, four home runs, driving the ball all over the field, I probably would have let him walk, too, in that situation.”

Sizemore made the decision in his fifth game after replacing Pedro Grifol as manager. He said Soto’s four strikeouts prompted the decision.

“It’s a matter of choosing the right poison. I’m not trying to get to Judge. I’ve opened a base. There’s no easy solution or way out of this predicament, but Soto was definitely the hotter of these two strikers, although Judge was also hot.”

This was only the second time in Judge’s career that a batter was intentionally removed from the field. The other time was during Judge’s rookie year, on Aug. 31, 2016, when Kansas City’s Chase Headley was intentionally removed from the field in the 13th inning.

Judge, who was named the 2022 American League MVP after hitting a league-record 62 home runs, has a .333 batting average and leads the majors with 110 RBIs. His 300th hit came eight years and one day after Judge hit a home run in his first major league at-bat.

“It definitely surprised us, but Aaron was ready to pitch,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of the intentional walk.

“I thought he stretched the area a little too wide at 3-0,” the coach joked.

Judge’s home run was 361 feet long, his second-shortest of the season, after another home run of 339 feet on May 19. That home run would not have been scored at Yankee Stadium.

Judge is the seventh player to reach 300 home runs in team history for the Yankees, joining Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Alex Rodriguez.

Judge needed 671 games to reach 200 home runs in his career, but he only needed 284 games to go from 200 to 300.

Judge became the 162nd player ever to reach 300 goals. His goal total ranks 13th among active players.

ESPN Stats & Information, Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.