Erik Boland: Bone bruise sidelines Judge, and threatens to derail Yankees season
Yankees' Aaron Judge sits in the dugout before a game against the Athletics at Sutter Health Park on May 29, 2026 in Sacramento, Calif. Credit: Getty Images/Ezra Shaw
If there’s one topic Aaron Judge likes talking about less than his own achievements on the field, it’s an injury.
He likes the Yankees talking publicly about the latter topic less than that.
So it was somewhat striking when Aaron Boone was, by his modest standards when it comes to disseminating information, an open book talking about Judge being kept out of Tuesday’s lineup against the Guardians at Yankee Stadium with a bone bruise in his right shoulder/right rib cage area.
“Hopefully it’s a day-to-day situation. Could be a few days, could be longer. I don’t know for sure,” Boone said before the Yankees lost, 9-4.
Afterward, Boone said there was “no update” on Judge but added that Wednesday “we’re going to have a specialist look at it, too. Just because it’s kind of a unique spot and everything. We’ll see how he feels Wednesday] with it.”
Boone said Judge’s slumping of late — he has had shoulder “soreness” for the “last couple of weeks” — became more pronounced over the weekend in Sacramento as the Yankees took two of three games from the Athletics to finish a 5-1 trip.
“It was just kind of nagging,” Boone said. “Then . . . the last couple [games] in Sacramento, I think it became a little bit more than that where I noticed it on some swings and stuff. It became a little more than just that nagging. I think it was affecting him.”
Judge, like the player who preceded him as Yankees captain, Derek Jeter, is loath to cop to pain or discomfort publicly, and even privately to teammates and coaches.
Jeter, during his 20 years in the majors, fully subscribed to the old-school sports tenet: If you’re hurt, you’re not playing. If you’re playing, you’re not hurt.
Judge, who is the only Yankee to have appeared in each of the team’s first 59 games this season, does, as well.
Still, when Boone approached the 34-year-old in Sacramento and inquired about his shoulder, Judge, who has just one homer in his last 18 games — and hit .206 with a .613 OPS in that stretch — copped to not feeling quite right.
“I think that’s certainly plausible,” Boone said of those struggles, particularly Judge’s power drought, resulting from the shoulder. Imaging done Monday night revealed the bone bruise and Judge, hitting .248 with those 17 homers, 38 RBIs and a .908 OPS this season, was evaluated later in the day Tuesday by team doctor Christopher Ahmad.
“Hopefully we avoided something serious,” Boone said.
It is, of course, too soon to make any conclusive statements about the Yankees’ prospects for the rest of the season if the next couple of days unfold in a way that result in a prolonged Judge absence. But history has not been kind in that regard.
Last season, Judge missed 10 games, July 26-Aug. 4, with a right flexor strain. The Yankees went 4-6.
Small sample size, to be sure.
But 2023 was not.
As few Yankees fans need reminding, Judge missed nearly two months of that season with a right big toe sprain after making a running catch during a June 3 victory at Dodger Stadium and banging hard into the lower, cement-exposed part of the bullpen fence in right.
The Yankees, cruising along at 35-25 after that win in Los Angeles three years ago, saw their entire season derailed as they went 19-23 with Judge on the injured list en route to finishing 82-80 and out of the playoffs.
Boone said the discomfort Judge is currently feeling is “not something that’s affecting his throwing or anything,” just when he is swinging a bat.
That is something the Yankees collectively have done well this season, entering Tuesday ranked first in the majors in homers (86), second in OPS (.769) and walks (260) and fourth in runs (305).
That, along with, of course, what has been the sport’s best rotation — fronted by Tuesday’s starter, and early favorite to win the AL Cy Young, Cam Schlittler — allowed the Yankees to come into the day with the AL’s second-best record (36-23).
“When we have energy and we’re pressing on the gas against all these teams, we’re the best team in baseball,” Judge said after Sunday’s 13-8 victory over the Athletics in which Judge delivered a rare in-game dugout pep talk to his team, which responded with a 13-run third inning. “I just wanted the guys to remember that and not forget that.”
Depending on how long he is sidelined, that very easily could be forgotten.
And fast.
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.
