The results were never going to be the most important part of Aaron Judge\u2019s return to the Yankees.<\/p>\n
Just having the three-time American League MVP back in the lineup after a three-month stint on the injured list for a broken rib made Tuesday night a rousing success for the Yankees.<\/p>\n
So while Judge went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts in the Yankees\u2019 5-3 win over the Colorado Rockies in the Bronx, there were plenty of positive takeaways.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was excited that the wait is over, and excited to play back in front of these fans,\u201d Judge said. \u201cThey\u2019re the best fans in the game, and they were on their feet from the jump, which was pretty cool and special. At the end of the day, just happy we got a win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge started in right field and batted third before exiting after six innings \u2014 part of the Yankees\u2019 plan to cautiously build up the slugger\u2019s workload after he forewent a minor-league rehab assignment.<\/p>\n
His evening started with a standing ovation from a sellout crowd of 46,211, followed by a five-pitch strikeout against Rockies right-hander Gabriel Hughes. Judge fouled off two sliders before swinging through a 93-mph fastball.<\/p>\n
Judge\u2019s second at-bat against Hughes was a bit more eventful, as he lifted a 350-foot drive to right-center that resulted in a fourth-inning flyout. That swing produced an exit velocity of 95.1 mph.<\/p>\n
And in the sixth inning, Judge struck out on six pitches against left-handed reliever Mark Manfredi. Judge didn\u2019t swing once in that at-bat.<\/p>\n
Perhaps more importantly, Judge\u2019s first at-bat ended with a 79.6-mph swing, while his second at-bat ended with a 78.3-mph swing.<\/p>\n
Both of those were fast swings \u2014 MLB\u2019s Statcast considers anything over 75 mph as such \u2014 and were speedier than Judge\u2019s season average of 76.1 mph.<\/p>\n
Judge didn\u2019t get any defensive opportunities during his six innings in right field, largely because Yankees ace Cam Schlittler struck out 10 over his seven innings of one-run ball.<\/p>\n
Heliot Ramos replaced Judge in right field to begin the seventh inning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got work to do,\u201d Judge said. \u201cI\u2019ve got to improve, and we\u2019ll keep improving as this goes along because we\u2019ve got ballgames to win. That\u2019s the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s series opener marked Judge\u2019s first appearance since May 31. The 34-year-old has traced the stress fracture in his right first rib to a dive he made in right field on April 26, though he continued to play through the injury for more than a month after that.<\/p>\n
Judge came off of the 60-day IL on Monday night, hours after he went through a comprehensive workout at Yankee Stadium in which he faced live pitching for the first time since the injury and simulated multiple innings on defense.<\/p>\n
Yankees manager Aaron Boone spent Monday\u2019s off-day watching Judge check the final boxes in his rehab progression, then consulted with the slugger and members of the team\u2019s brass before Judge\u2019s activation.<\/p>\n
During that workout, Judge\u2019s swing looked \u201cgood, physical [and] strong,\u201d Boone said before Tuesday\u2019s win.<\/p>\n
\u201cStill working at it,\u201d Boone said. \u201cObviously, he hasn\u2019t had a lot of live at-bats. That\u2019s the one thing, so he\u2019ll work through it as good as anyone. \u2026. I think it\u2019s good that we\u2019re getting him back now when we are, and we can build him up properly, but hopefully get him clicking as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Tuesday\u2019s win, the Yankees improved to 37-23 (.612) with Judge in the lineup, compared to 45-39 (.536) without him.<\/p>\n
Their offense averaged 4.1 runs per game and a .681 OPS without Judge \u2014 down from 5.2 runs per game and a .770 OPS before his absence.<\/p>\n
The righty-swinging Judge is now hitting .244 with 17 home runs and a .895 OPS in 60 games this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the best hitter in the world, so that\u2019s a big guy to take out of your lineup,\u201d Boone said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very left-handed, and have been much of the year. How many days a week are we getting a lefty in the fifth inning, in the seventh inning, in the ninth inning? And they\u2019re matching up against us, and they don\u2019t have to roll through Aaron Judge that\u2019s surrounding those lefties. There\u2019s a protection element there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Yankees didn\u2019t need much offense Tuesday, as Schlittler bolstered his AL Cy Young Award case with another dominant outing.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old right-hander surrendered just three hits \u2014 a solo homer by Adael Alexander accounted for the only damage \u2014 without issuing a walk. It was the fourth time this season that Schlitter has struck out at least 10.<\/p>\n
Schlittler improved 13-6 with a 2.01 ERA and 220 innings in 178.2 innings.<\/p>\n
His main competition in the AL Cy Young race is Toronto\u2019s Dylan Cease, who is 10-5 with a 2.40 ERA and 227 strikeouts in 161.1 innings.<\/p>\n
Ryan McMahon\u2019s fifth-inning RBI double broke a 1-1 tie, while Ramos\u2019 three-run home run in the bottom of the eighth padded the Yankees\u2019 lead.<\/p>\n
The win clinched a 34th consecutive winning season for the Yankees (82-62).<\/p>\n
CHISHOLM EXITS<\/p>\n
Jazz Chisholm Jr. exited in the ninth inning with a thumb issue, Boone said.<\/p>\n
Chisholm jammed his thumb on a slide while running the bases, then came out of the game\u00a0after throwing out Rockies outfielder Jake McCarthy on a bang-bang play on defense.<\/p>\n
Jos\u00e9 Caballero replaced Chisholm at second base.<\/p>\n
Boone said it\u2019s possible Chisholm would undergo testing on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see what we have in the morning,\u201d Boone said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The results were never going to be the most important part of Aaron Judge\u2019s return to the Yankees.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[10094,128,32358,52249,20,9,24,63,128119,129,131,130,16301],"class_list":["post-341395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-aaron-judge","tag-bronx","tag-cam-schlittler","tag-jazz-chisholm-jr","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-rockies","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-yankees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}