Aaron Boone wishes Aaron Judge had said something sooner, but understands why he didn't
Yankees' manager Aaron Boone watching the pitcher going through their drills during spring training in Tampa, FL on Feb. 13, 2020. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
BRADENTON, Fla. — In a perfect world, yes, Aaron Boone said, the Yankees would have preferred to have Aaron Judge tell the team about the discomfort he felt basically from Day 1 of the offseason.
“I mean, sure,” Boone said Saturday morning before the Yankees' 7-4 victory over the Pirates at LECOM Park. “You always want guys to really communicate exactly what they’re thinking.”
Nearly a week of intensive testing on Judge, who was shut down in early February and had been very limited in spring training, showed a stress fracture of the first right rib.
He is shut down for two weeks, at which point the Yankees will reevaluate him to see if the rib is healing on its own, therefore eliminating the possibility of a surgical procedure that would cost him a significant chunk of the 2020 season, if not all of it.
The injury dated to last Sept. 18, when Judge landed hard on his right shoulder while unsuccessfully attempting to make a diving catch. He managed the pain the rest of the regular season and throughout the postseason, but while discussing the situation Friday afternoon, he said the pain never really went away.
“I felt normal soreness just like you do when you start moving around again,” Judge said of November, when he began his winter work in earnest. “And then as the offseason progressed on, it started to get worse and worse, but I thought it was more of a chest issue. Is it a pec? Is it my shoulder? There was a lot of confusion out there because I thought it was something I can warm up and work through and be fine by the time spring training starts. If I would have known it was a rib, maybe I would have done things a little bit differently.”
That raised some eyebrows in the organization, but Boone, while also wishing Judge had done some things differently, understood his actions to a point.
“You also understand that, as an athlete, you kind of work through things,” said Boone, who enjoyed a 12-year career in the majors. “And sometimes you don’t think something’s that big of a deal, so you’re not going to run in at every opportunity, especially when you’re away from the club, and say things. Just trying to create that environment where hopefully our guys are, in a way, almost over-communicating with us as far as what exactly is going on so we can ultimately better serve them.”
Judge is the third Yankee out for a lengthy period of time with an injury traced to 2019; James Paxton (back) and Luis Severino (forearm soreness that ultimately turned out to be a UCL tear that necessitated Tommy John surgery) are the others. Friday’s news spurred fresh criticism of the Yankees' training and medical staffs, of which there was ample turnover in the offseason after a record 30 players landed on the injured list in 2019.
But Judge himself seemed to provide cover for that group Friday because the reality was the pain he felt primarily was in the shoulder and neck area. Tests after he crashed to the ground in that Sept. 18 game were done on those areas — and were again after the season — because that’s where he said he felt the discomfort.
“You give them the symptoms, tell them what’s wrong and they work off of what you say,” Judge said.
A CT scan taken Wednesday finally showed the stress fracture of the rib, meaning the Yankees will be without Judge and Giancarlo Stanton (out an estimated four to six weeks with a right calf strain) on Opening Day and for a yet-to-be-determined amount of time after that.
With Aaron Hicks also out after undergoing Tommy John surgery in late October, Brett Gardner is the presumed everyday centerfielder. Boone said Saturday that he could see rotating Mike Tauchman, Clint Frazier, Miguel Andujar and even Tyler Wade, if he makes the club out of camp, between left and right.
“I definitely see some mixing and matching going on there,” Boone said. “And I think even when we do get, hopefully, everyone back, at that point there will be some mixing and matching and trying to be creative with the DH spot and things like that.”
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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