Baseball is better when New York Yankees superstar Aaron Judge is on the field, but there are some real questions around him right now.
On Tuesday, it was shared that Judge is dealing with a bone bruise is in his right ribs that is causing pain in his shoulder, as shared on X by MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch.
“The Yankees are saying that Aaron Judge’s bone bruise is in his right ribs. He feels it in his right shoulder,” Hoch wrote.
Naturally, Judge’s injury was one of the biggest stories across the baseball world on Tuesday. Jack Curry of YES Networknoted that he has been dealing with pain for “a couple of weeks.”
“Boone said Judge has a bone bruise in his right rib area that impacts him when he swings. Judge has been dealing with nagging soreness for a couple of weeks, Boone said. Judge isn’t starting tonight. Boone said the hope is it was caught early and won’t be a long-term injury,” Curry wrote.
Judge wasn’t in the lineup for New York on Tuesday night against the Cleveland Guardians.
Now that the reports are out there about his injury, his recent power outage makes much more sense. Judge has 17 homers on the season, but just one in his last 18 games. That’s certainly not the expectation for the hulking slugger.
If Judge needs to miss any time, or plays and isn’t himself, that changes the calculus in the American League East. The Tampa Bay Rays have a half-game lead over the Yankees for first place right now and that will grow if Judge can’t be himself. The Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays are tied for third place and are eight games behind the second-place Yankees. Both have the talent on the roster to be much better than they have been this season. The Yankees are obviously still good without Judge, but they aren’t head and shoulders above the rest.
The American League has been bad overall and the Yankees and Rays have been the only two teams to really separate themselves from the rest. If Judge can’t return to form soon, the American League is going to look very weak overall.
All eyes are on New York right now across the league. When a three-time Most Valuable Player is beaten up, the baseball world pays attention. Hopefully, he’s able to get better soon.
Add us as a preferred source on Google
