Erik Boland: Final week of Yankees' regular season is all about Aaron Judge and when he can return from calf injury
Aaron Judge of the Yankees looks on from the dugout during sixth inning of an MLB game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on Saturday in Phoenix. Credit: Getty Images/Christian Petersen
A 3-3 road trip at this point of the long season for almost any big-league team would be considered at least a minor success.
The 3-3 trip for the Yankees that concluded with Sunday’s 8-4 loss to the Diamondbacks was nothing short of disastrous.
And potentially season-altering — and not in a good way — depending on the prognosis for Aaron Judge’s right calf.
It all starts there, of course.
This time it was something other than Judge’s upper body commanding attention. During the previous three months-plus, he battled his way back from a right rib stress fracture, missing 84 games.
In the early innings of Wednesday’s loss to the Twins in Minneapolis, Judge felt discomfort in his right calf. He eventually gave way to a pinch hitter in the top of the sixth inning of what turned into a 5-4, 13-inning loss.
That defeat all but put an end to the Yankees’ AL East title hopes. They fell 4 1⁄2 games behind the Rays on Wednesday and now are six back with seven games to play. The Rays’ magic number is down to two, which means that if the Yankees lose even one of the four games against Tampa Bay this week, the division race is over.
So the 3-3 trip essentially cemented the Yankees as a wild-card team and sucked any remaining drama there might have been for this week’s series at the Stadium. The Yankees are a club headed for a best-of-three Wild Card Series showdown with the Red Sox.
Winning three of four against the Red Sox from Aug. 28-30 and outscoring them 26-9 gave the Yankees a 7-6 edge in the season series.
A Yankees-Red Sox matchup at the Stadium in the wild-card round has seemed fairly inevitable since Boston left town the night of Aug. 30 after a 16-1 loss.
As incredible as the Red Sox’s 32-5 stretch was, they have gone 52-67 the rest of the season. They cut the Yankees’ 15 1⁄2-game lead to a half-game with that hot streak but never caught them, and they have gone 20-21 since the streak ended on Aug. 7.
So before the road trip to Minnesota and Arizona, the potential of a wild-card matchup with the Red Sox — aside from the anything-can-happen element that goes with any short series in baseball — hadn’t thrown a huge scare into the fan base.
Now, however, Judge seems questionable at best for that series, which has taken on a far different look — and created additional angst for Yankees fans — with the potential of the three-time American League MVP missing it entirely or being severely limited in it.
While it’s true the Yankees managed that season-series win against the Red Sox without Judge, who did not return until Sept. 8, that late August series was mostly an outlier when it came to the performance of their offense when the outfielder was out.
The Yankees did well enough in Judge’s absence with a more than respectable 45-39 record, but the difference in the offense’s numbers were striking.
Through May 31, the last game Judge played before going on the injured list in early June, Yankees were 36-23, averaging 5.2 runs per game and hitting .243 with a .770 OPS.
Without Judge before his return on Sept. 8? The offense averaged 4.1 runs per game and hit .227 with a .681 OPS in that 45-39 stretch.
The upcoming week now becomes all about Judge. The only question that matters: Just how serious is his calf strain?
In the least surprising development that has occurred since Judge came out of Wednesday’s game, the Yankees, taking their cue from the outfielder, have said little regarding what’s to come.
But even within the vagueness of most of the answers, there was room for tea-leaf reading.
A somber Aaron Boone said after Wednesday’s game (before knowing of the upcoming MRI tests): “Hopefully we get it treated and knock it out and he’ll be a factor at some point.”
The “some point” sent up all kinds of red flags.
Judge, speaking to reporters in Phoenix on Saturday, said, “I’d like to be back by the postseason. That’s definitely the plan.”
Judge saying he’d “like” to be back by the playoffs — which for the Yankees are very likely to begin Sept. 29 — and that doing so is “the plan” is not the same as a “this is a small thing; I’ll be back” guarantee.
That Judge, who did not play in any rehab games before his return, went 4-for-23 with 13 strikeouts and one homer in seven games before returning to the injured list is not relevant.
It’s his mere presence in the lineup — and what it represents in terror factor to opposing pitchers, regardless of whether Judge is in a hot streak or cold streak — that matters.
What kind of a presence Judge will be come Sept. 29 — and whether he will be a presence at all — will take center stage in evaluating the week to come, and not how the Yankees do against the Rays and Orioles to end the season.
Judge’s calf is now all that matters this week, a week that, up until this 3-3 trip, appeared assured of meaning so much more.
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.
