Aaron Judge Rib Injury Update: Yankees Captain Still Not Cleared for Baseball Activities
Aaron Judge is still hurt. He is still not cleared to swing a bat. The Yankees season is starting to slip away, and there is no clear finish line for the injury that has kept him off the field since May 31.
Judge underwent new imaging on his fractured right rib during the All Star break. The results, according to Yankees manager Aaron Boone, showed some healing but not enough to clear him for baseball activities.
“There’s some progress, some healing going on, but it’s not fully healed,” Judge said Thursday.
That is a bad update dressed up as a hopeful one. Anyone can hear it.
Judge suffered the injury in late April. He has been shut down since May 31. That is nearly two months of missed time for the reigning American League MVP, and the Yankees have felt it. Without him, they are averaging 4.16 runs per game, which ranks eighth worst in Major League Baseball. Their offense is stuck without his lineup presence.
The Yankees lost 2-1 to the Dodgers on Friday. That is the kind of game they win with Judge in the lineup and lose without him. It has been happening all summer.
Boone tried to spin the update as positive. Progress is progress. But he also had to admit that Judge cannot start any baseball activities right now. That means no swinging, no throwing, no field work. Just the lower body work and light exercise he has been doing for weeks.
Judge did offer one piece of encouraging news. He said the pain is subsiding somewhat over the last couple of weeks and changing from sharp to dull. That is what healing feels like. It does not mean he will be back next week. It means his body is repairing itself at some pace.
The timeline is still a black hole. Nobody in the Yankees organization will give a date. Nobody will even give a target for when Judge might be cleared for basic swings. All Boone will say is that Judge remains optimistic he will play this season. Optimism is not a return date.
Meanwhile, the Yankees are staring at the trade deadline with a real problem to solve. Do they buy? Do they sell? Do they get help expecting Judge back? Do they retool for 2027?
Brian Cashman has always been an aggressive deadline operator. But he cannot commit money and prospects without knowing if his best player is coming back. It is impossible to plan the roster around a player who has no timetable to swing a bat.
The Yankees have Jazz Chisholm, Ben Rice, and Anthony Volpe playing well. Cody Bellinger has been solid. Giancarlo Stanton is doing what Stanton does, when he plays. But none of them are Judge. When he is on the field, the whole team hits better. When he is out, everyone tries to do too much.
The AL East is still in play. The Blue Jays and Orioles have their own problems. The Rays and Red Sox are hovering. The division can be won by whichever team gets healthy first.
Judge said he still expects to be back this year. That is what a captain has to say. Yankees fans should not read too much into it either way. A rib fracture heals when it heals. There is no timetable to force.
What is clear: the Yankees cannot count on him for August. Maybe September. Maybe not at all. The last two months of the season are going to be defined by that uncertainty. That is a bad place for a team with title expectations to be sitting in mid July.
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.
