Yankees' Aaron Judge to be placed on 10-day IL with right calf strain
Yankees' Aaron Judge reacts after striking out during the third inning against the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday in Minneapolis. Credit: AP/Abbie Parr
Aaron Judge isn’t likely to play again this regular season.
And suddenly, the three-time American League MVP isn’t a certainty for the Yankees in October, either.
Judge is scheduled to be placed on the injured list on Saturday with a right calf strain, the club announced Friday afternoon.
Judge, who missed more than three months with a right rib stress fracture before returning from the injured list on Sept. 8, suffered this most recent injury in the early going of Wednesday afternoon’s 5-4, 13-inning loss to the Twins at Target Field.
Because his 10-day IL stint will be retroactive to Thursday, Judge will be eligible to return in time to play in the Yankees’ season finale a week from Sunday at the Stadium against the Orioles.
It was not immediately clear how serious the calf strain is. When he dealt with a calf strain during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season, he missed a total of 29 games between two separate IL stints.
Before the Judge news was announced Friday, the Yankees already were all but locked into playing in a best-of-three American League Wild Card Series against the Red Sox. The Yankees, who faced the Diamondbacks in Phoenix late Friday night, entered the day trailing the AL East-leading Rays by five games with 10 games to play. Tampa Bay, which began a series against Boston on Friday night, had a magic number of six entering the day.
The Yankees, who entered Friday with a magic number of four to clinch home-field advantage for the wild-card round, will host a four-game series against the Rays from Tuesday through Thursday, including a split doubleheader on Tuesday. The Yankees need to sweep the four games to earn the tiebreaker advantage against Tampa Bay, which leads the season series 6-3.
Even if Judge is back by the time of the Wild Card Series, slated to begin Sept. 29, there are no assurances that he will be the threat he typically is.
Judge was predictably rusty after his return from the rib fracture after declining to take the typical step of playing rehab games, instead coming back after a live batting practice session on Sept. 7. He went 4-for-23 with one homer and 13 strikeouts in seven games.
Given the diagnosis of a calf strain and the slow healing process that generally accompanies that injury, the Yankees at this point would sign up for any version of Judge for the postseason.
Giancarlo Stanton, for instance, suffered what testing showed to be a low-grade right calf strain during an April 24 game against the Astros in Houston. Stanton, who was placed on the IL on April 28 and suffered multiple setbacks while running the bases in trying to get back, has not played in a game since. He suffered another right calf strain that set him back and then strained his left calf while running the bases.
The Yankees were 36-23 after Judge played for the final time on May 31 before going on the IL a few days later with the rib injury. They immediately went 10-5 without him but then went into a 4-14 slide that left them at 50-42.
They have won more consistently of late, going 7-2 since he returned. That was part of a 13-6 stretch that brought them to 88-64 entering Friday.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
More Yankees headlines
