{"id":716404,"date":"2026-06-05T06:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T06:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/716404\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T06:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T06:56:12","slug":"aaron-judge-reevaluated-in-4-6-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/716404\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Judge Reevaluated In 4-6 Weeks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Yankees will be without the game\u2019s most feared slugger for a couple months. New York announced that Aaron Judge<\/a> has been diagnosed with a stress fracture in the first rib on his right side. He\u2019ll go for follow-up imaging in four to six weeks to gauge his healing and rehab process.<\/p>\n

New York announced that Judge is expected back at some point before the end of the season. It\u2019ll almost certainly not be until August at the earliest. He\u2019ll be placed on the 10-day injured list before tomorrow\u2019s series opener with the Red Sox and seems likely to wind up on the 60-day IL at some point.<\/p>\n

Judge sat out this week\u2019s series against the Guardians. The Yankees announced he was going for testing on a ribcage injury despite feeling the pain mostly in his right shoulder. Fans had some concern when the team sent Judge to a doctor who specializes in treating thoracic outlet syndrome this afternoon. It seems that was to rule out the nerve condition.<\/p>\n

Thoracic outlet syndrome would have been the nightmare outcome. A rib fracture seems unlikely to be a career-altering injury. While it\u2019s not a worst case scenario, it\u2019s clearly not good news. It\u2019ll take until around the All-Star Break for the team to even check into the rib\u2019s healing. He\u2019d need to build up baseball activities and live batting practice sessions from there. An absence of this length is also going to require a rehab assignment to get accustomed to game speed.<\/p>\n

Judge has felt an increasing amount of discomfort while hitting over the past few weeks. There was no single play this season that caused the injury. Bryan Hoch of MLB.com<\/a> notes that Judge actually suffered a stress fracture of the same rib and a partially collapsed lung on a diving catch attempt back in 2019. That wasn\u2019t diagnosed until the following March. The pandemic then shut down the sport for a few months, so that injury didn\u2019t cost him any game time.<\/p>\n

This injury has clearly weighed on Judge\u2019s performance. He hit .243\/.368\/.437 with five home runs in May. That\u2019d be a good few weeks for most hitters but was Judge\u2019s lowest OPS in a month since April 2024. He had an OPS north of 1.000 this April, slugging 12 homers through the season\u2019s first five weeks.<\/p>\n

The Yankees are also without\u00a0Giancarlo Stanton<\/a> and\u00a0Jasson Dom\u00ednguez<\/a>. Utility players\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Caballero<\/a> and\u00a0Max Schuemann<\/a> have started the last three games in right field. They\u2019ll probably bring Spencer Jones<\/a> back up from Triple-A Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre now that a Judge IL stay is confirmed. Dom\u00ednguez is taking batting practice and could begin a rehab assignment this week. Stanton told Jon Heyman of The New York Post<\/a> that he\u2019s hoping to be back from a calf strain in about two weeks.<\/p>\n

New York led MLB in scoring in May even without a herculean month from the three-time MVP.\u00a0Ben Rice<\/a> and Cody Bellinger<\/a> are having fantastic seasons.\u00a0Jazz Chisholm Jr.<\/a> has picked things up after a bad start.\u00a0Paul Goldschmidt<\/a>, back in the everyday lineup thanks to the Stanton and Dom\u00ednguez injuries, is having a resurgent year. The bottom third of the order has been an issue, especially\u00a0Austin Wells<\/a> behind the plate, but this should still be an above-average lineup.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clearly not going to be as potent without Judge as the anchor though. It\u2019s unlikely this will dramatically change their deadline trajectory, as Dom\u00ednguez should be back before too long to hold an outfield spot until Judge returns. It could certainly impact a tight division race, with New York holding a half-game advantage over Tampa Bay in the AL East.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Yankees will be without the game\u2019s most feared slugger for a couple months. New York announced that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[6097,64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-716404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-aaron-judge","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}