The Loss of Aaron Judge Only Magnifies Slumping, Banged-Up Yankees’ Woes

The last thing the Yankees needed amid a slump that’s knocked them into last place in the AL East for the first time since April 26, 2021 was in injury to their best player. Yet that’s what they’re facing, because on Monday they placed Aaron Judge on the 10-day injured list due to a strain in his right hip. While the injury isn’t believed to be a severe one — indeed, the reigning AL MVP and the team waited the weekend to see if he felt good enough to return to the lineup — it comes at a time when New York has already been hit hard by injuries, magnifying the roster’s shaky construction.
Judge injured himself last Wednesday, on his 31st birthday. In the second inning, after collecting his second double of the game off the Twins’ Kenta Maeda and helping the Yankees build up a 5–0 lead, he attempted to steal third base. Catcher Christian Vázquez made a perfect peg to third baseman Willi Castro, who tagged Judge on his helmet as he made an awkward headfirst slide into the bag.
The initial concern about Judge was that he’d jammed his right wrist; cameras and tweets from the Target Field press box showed him flexing and shaking his right hand in the dugout afterwards. That he was serving as the team’s designated hitter that day created some suspense as to whether he’d take his next plate appearance. He did, and reached base two more times. But he departed after four innings and two plate appearances on Thursday against the Rangers due to discomfort in his right hip. “It was just a little grab in the hip area — after that headfirst slide… the whole right side has been a little locked up,” he said after that game. “The culmination of having that [slide] and a couple of swings today, I just really couldn’t get it loose.”
An MRI showed what the team described as a small strain near the top of his right hip. Judge didn’t play in any of the remaining three games of the series, forcing an already beaten-up team to play shorthanded. The Yankees lost all three, scoring just four runs and collecting a total of 16 hits. Read the rest of this entry »