Aaron Judge has not swung a bat since early June. The Yankees are running out of hope that changes soon.
Judge has been on the injured list since June 5, when he was diagnosed with a stress fracture in the first rib on his right side. He was transferred to the 60-day IL on July 18. Re-imaging in mid-July showed some healing but not enough for him to resume baseball activities. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said on July 25 that Judge is still in what he called “let-it-heal mode.”
That is not a great sign with two months of regular season left.
The original plan called for another imaging update during the All-Star break. Those images showed encouraging signs of healing but not enough for doctors to clear him to swing or throw. Judge himself acknowledged there has been no progress toward those activities. Late July was floated as a best-case return. Mid-August is now more likely. Neither has happened.
The Yankees are 62-51. They are hanging on in the AL East, but they are being outrun by the Blue Jays and Rays in a division that has turned into a bloodbath. Without Judge, this offense is a shell of what it should be. Trent Grisham has been fine. Anthony Volpe has been up and down. Ben Rice has been a nice story. None of it replaces a 60-homer bat in the middle of the order.
The trade deadline is Monday. Cashman has been active. He moved Camilo Doval. He has been calling on relievers, on rotation depth, on anything he can find. But the biggest addition would be Judge himself, and no trade can fix that.
Rib stress fractures are tricky. They heal on their own timeline. You cannot rush them. You cannot immobilize them. You essentially have to wait. Judge has been resting, doing everything the trainers ask, and hoping the next image looks better than the last one.
He said publicly he still believes he will play again this year. That is a real if. Even if he does come back, he will need time to swing without pain, then time to rehab in the minors, then time to get back to game speed. The compressed timeline works against him.
The Yankees have to plan for the worst. They cannot count on Judge being productive in September, let alone October. They are going to have to figure out how to win games without him and hope that if a playoff run happens, Judge shows up for the ride at the end.
The offense is not built for this. Judge is the sun. Everyone else orbits around him. Removing him disrupts every part of the lineup. Pitchers stop pitching around Giancarlo Stanton. They stop pitching around anyone. And the walks and the home runs and the runs dry up in a hurry.
New York fans have to hope the next imaging session brings better news. Otherwise a season that started with title expectations could end with an early exit and a lot of questions about how the Yankees got here.
Judge is doing everything right. Physics is just not cooperating.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
