Yankees Announce Aaron Judge Injury News

Judge has been dealing with a rib injury that caused shoulder pain and was sent for various tests and was seen by several doctors. He missed the last three games and will now be out for at least the next two months it appears.

Following Thursday's 2-1 victory over the Cleveland Guardians, Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters that Judge was sent to see Dr. Gregory Pearl of Texas, who specializes in thoracic outlet syndrome. The Yankees were able to rule out the dreaded thoracic outlet syndrome for Judge.

What's evident is that the Yankees cannot afford to lose Judge for a significant period of time when they're trying to chase down the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League East and end their 17-year World Series title drought.

In the three games without Judge, the Yankees scored just 10 runs and lost two out of three games to the Guardians. They will now have to figure out a way to compete without their star player and captain until later this summer.

The Yankees will be heavily relying upon Ben Rice, Cody Bellinger and Jazz Chisholm Jr. to carry their offense with Judge out. Paul Goldschmidt and Jose Caballero are also having nice years at the plate. But they will need other bats to step up such as Trent Grisham, Austin Wells and Ryan McMahon.

DH Giancarlo Stanton should be back from his right calf strain in the coming weeks, which will be a nice boost for the middle of the lineup. Power-hitting top prospect outfielder Spencer Jones could get recalled to the majors once Judge officially hits the IL, too.

However, there is no sugarcoating how massive of a loss it is for the Yankees to be without Judge for at least over a month of time.

The Yankees are 37-25 on the season and a half game back of the Rays in the AL East. But without Judge, they can probably kiss their division title hopes goodbye this year and hope for a Wild Card berth instead.

The last time the Yankees were without Judge for a large portion of games was when he injured his toe after crashing into the wall at Dodger Stadium in 2023. The Yankees missed the postseason that year for the first time since 2016.