Aaron Judge Returns to IL With Calf Strain — SkimNews
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- Yankees announced they will place Aaron Judge on the 10-day injured list on Saturday, two days after a right calf strain forced him out of a game mid-contest
- Judge had already missed more than three months earlier this season with a wrist issue and played just seven games before landing back on the IL
- The Yankees can backdate the IL transaction, making Judge eligible to return on the final day of the regular season (Sept. 27), with the Wild Card Series scheduled to begin Sept. 29
- Judge has played only 66 games this season, batting .241/.360/.511 with 18 homers, 41 RBI and 1.9 WAR, and is hitting just .174/.208/.304 in 24 plate appearances since his wrist return
- A similar calf strain cost Judge roughly three weeks in 2020; a comparable timeline this year would see him return in the middle of the ALDS
- The Yankees are 41-25 when Judge starts and 47-39 when he doesn't, and he will miss the entire four-game series against the Rays next week at Yankee Stadium that will decide the AL East
Why it matters: The Yankees trail the Rays by five games in the AL East with a four-game head-to-head series next week that Judge will miss entirely, directly imperiling their shot at the division title and the top seed — even though they've already clinched a playoff berth. New York's .656 winning percentage with Judge in the lineup versus .546 without him quantifies just how much the team's postseason ceiling depends on whether his calf cooperates by mid-October.
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