Aaron Judge hit in face by between-innings toss from Anthony Volpe, but he's OK
The Yankees’ play of late has left them bloodied and bruised, but only in a figurative way.
Aaron Judge was bloodied — literally — during Saturday afternoon’s 12-6 loss to the Mets, the Yankees’ sixth straight defeat and their 16th in the last 22 games.
The fluky incident occurred after the bottom of the fourth inning when Judge, as he was crossing from the outfield grass to the infield dirt in the neighborhood of second base, was hit in the area just to the right of his right eye by a long-toss throw from shortstop Anthony Volpe, who was well into foul ground when he lobbed the ball.
Judge, momentarily staggered, had his sunglasses knocked from his face before picking them up and continuing on to the dugout. Judge, who went 0-for-4 with a strikeout and a walk, played the rest of the game with a small bandage on the affected area.
“It’s good,” Judge, still wearing the bandage, said of his eye, not especially interested in exploring the topic in detail.
It is not unusual for infielders to throw baseballs in such a manner to teammates coming off the field; Volpe, for instance, has done it many times over the years with Judge, among others.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone, naturally, had some immediate concern.
“I didn’t know what happened initially, I just saw kind of a what felt like something [bad] happened,” Boone said. “Yeah, of course, I was concerned. Had a little cut. In the end I don’t think anything too serious, obviously, but initially very concerned.”
Volpe, in an 18-for-99 stretch entering the day, went 1-for-4, hitting his 10th homer of the season in the seventh inning off Richard Lovelady.
“That’s MLB now,” Boone said of the Volpe toss to Judge. “You’ll see strike three, the catcher will throw it to an infielder, they’ll throw it to each other. I think every team kind of does that, throw the ball to each other as they’re running off.”
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.
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