Aaron Judge is expected to return soon from the stress fracture in his right rib, and the American League should be paying close attention. Even at 60 or 70 percent of himself, Judge in the middle of the Yankees lineup changes the entire shape of the pennant race.
The Yankees have spent most of the summer waiting on their captain. Now they are getting him back at the perfect time, and they are getting him back with reinforcements. Giancarlo Stanton is on his way off the injured list. Cody Bellinger is nearing a return as well. Suddenly a lineup that looked thin in July is starting to look like the version New York planned to run out in April.
Pair that with the best pitching staff in the American League, and the Yankees are the team to beat down the stretch. Their rotation has been elite all year. The bullpen has quietly stabilized. The one thing they were missing was thump in the lineup, and Judge is the guy who provides it.
Nobody in baseball changes a lineup the way Judge does. Pitchers approach the entire order differently when he is standing in the on-deck circle. The hitters in front of him see more strikes. The hitters behind him get better pitches to hit. His presence alone is worth wins, and that is before you count what his own bat does.
The race in the American League is a three-team fight right now. The Yankees, the Tampa Bay Rays, and the Boston Red Sox are separated by a couple of games, and none of them has been able to fully pull away. The Rays are doing what the Rays always do, running a smart pitching staff and getting the most out of a limited payroll. The Red Sox got aggressive at the trade deadline and added catcher Adley Rutschman, which was a real needle-mover for their lineup.
Boston is a real contender, and adding Rutschman was one of the smartest deadline moves any team made. He immediately upgraded the catching position, added a middle-of-the-order bat, and gave Alex Cora a defender who can steal strikes for their young starters. But even with that move, the Red Sox pitching depth is a level below what New York can trot out.
Tampa Bay is the wild card. They always are. They have won more than 90 games in years where nobody had them on the map, and they could do it again. But the Rays’ ceiling in a short series depends on their bullpen being perfect, and perfect is a lot to ask of anyone in October.
The Yankees at full strength do not have that same fragility. Judge, Stanton, and Bellinger back in the same lineup means Aaron Boone can go deep into his bench without losing a beat. It means when Gerrit Cole or one of the other top starters gets touched up for a couple of runs, the offense can still put up five or six of their own.
New York has been to the World Series once in the last handful of years and lost. This roster, at this level of health, is built to get back there. Judge coming back is the tipping point that turns a good team into the AL favorite.
Boston fans can push back all they want, and Rays fans can point to their October track record, but the honest read is that the Yankees are the deepest and most talented team in the American League when Judge is on the field. He has been the difference maker in every version of this franchise for the last five years, and this September is going to be no different.
Get ready for a stretch run where every Yankees game feels like it matters. Because with Judge back, it does.
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.
