Yankees' Aaron Judge could be activated Tuesday or Wednesday, Aaron Boone says
Aaron Judge #99 of the New York Yankees works out on the field before a game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, July 31, 2025. Credit: Jim McIsaac
MIAMI — Aaron Judge’s stay on the injured list apparently won’t be a long one.
That’s something he and the Yankees hoped would be the case last Sunday when the two-time American League MVP went on the IL with a flexor strain in his right elbow.
Before Friday night’s game against the Marlins, Aaron Boone said Judge was scheduled to take batting practice on Friday and Saturday at loanDepot park before heading to Tampa on Sunday. There, at the club’s minor-league complex, Judge will take at-bats against minor-leaguers “to hopefully put him in position to be activated on Tuesday or Wednesday,” Boone said.
The plan remains for Judge, at least in the early going after he returns, to see time solely at DH to give his elbow additional time to rest. Boone will have to figure out how to juggle Judge and DH Giancarlo Stanton, who hit his fifth homer in his last nine games Friday night, a three-run shot in the fourth inning.
Judge’s injury occurred during the sixth inning of a July 22 game in Toronto when he unleashed a throw home from rightfield.
“It zinged him. It hurt,” Boone said last week.
Though Judge started in rightfield three days later against the Phillies at the Stadium, the lingering discomfort was a hindrance when it came to making throws and the decision came a day later for him to undergo an MRI.
“I couldn’t throw. That kind of sums it up,” Judge said last Saturday after getting the test results, which showed no structural damage to his UCL. “I wanted to be out there for the team, be out there and do my thing, [but] after a couple days of it not really getting better, we decided it was probably best to get it checked out.”
That news allowed everyone — for the time being — to breathe a sigh of relief.
“You never want to go in the [MRI] tube,” Judge said. “It’s never fun [and] you don’t know what’s going to show up . . . but I’m glad we got a better answer than it could have been.”
Judge did not go on the IL without some initial pushback, however.
“I think it just kind of came down to a point where [if] I’ve got to make a play for the team and not be able to do [that, it] kind of hurts,” Judge said of eventually relenting.
Entering Friday night, the Yankees had gone 4-2 in Judge’s absence, including winning three straight. That is no small feat considering the way they generally have played when Judge has missed time.
The Yankees went 25-31 without Judge in 2023 after he suffered a toe injury when he ran into the Dodger Stadium rightfield bullpen door while chasing down a fly ball.
“[It’s] Aaron Judge, so, you know, it’s a big deal,” Boone said last weekend after Judge was put on the IL. “But we have a lot of really good players around him. We have three regular outfielders there that have played regularly that need to be productive. And offensively, I still think we’re good and in a good spot and we’ll be able to score runs at a healthy clip . . . Even with [Judge] down for a period of time, we got it.”
As of Friday, it doesn’t seem as if the Yankees will have to deal with that “it” too much longer.
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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