{"id":353782,"date":"2026-09-22T18:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T18:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/353782\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T18:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T18:44:14","slug":"new-york-yankees-dont-expect-aaron-judge-back-for-wild-card-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/353782\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Yankees don’t expect Aaron Judge back for wild card playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — Yankees<\/a> manager Aaron Boone said he does not expect to have Aaron Judge<\/a> available for the Wild Card series next week, though he did not completely rule out the star right fielder recovering from his calf strain in time to play.<\/p>\n

“We’re planning on him not being a part of that,” Boone said Tuesday before the Yankees hosted the Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> for a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n

Judge was placed on the injured list with a right calf strain Friday, two days after exiting a game against the Minnesota Twins<\/a> with the injury. Judge and the team declined to specify the severity of the injury through the weekend. On Tuesday, Boone labeled it a “moderate grade” strain. He said Judge received a PPP injection Monday and will avoid physical activity over the “next couple days.”<\/p>\n

“You hear all the time with injuries, we get ranges,” Boone said. “Two to four weeks, four to six, all these things. There are ranges for a reason, and we’re at a point in the year where obviously we push it a little bit if that was in play. But that’s a week away so I’m not expecting it, but I’m not ruling it out either.”<\/p>\n

Judge, 34, sustained the injury in his seventh game back after missing more than three months with a fractured rib. The three-time MVP returned without going on a rehab assignment and went 4-for-23 with 13 strikeouts, one walk, and one home run in 24 plate appearances. He will likely finish his injury-plagued campaign with a .241 batting average, 18 home runs and an .871 OPS in just 66 games after two historic MVP seasons.<\/p>\n

Heliot Ramos<\/a> will start in right field for the fourth straight game since Judge’s absence in Tuesday’s opener. Spencer Jones<\/a> is another option to play right field in the postseason should Trent Grisham<\/a>, who is on the injured list with a hamstring injury, return to play center field.<\/p>\n

The Rays entered Tuesday’s doubleheader with a magic number of one to clinch the American League East title with seven games remaining. Barring a Rays collapse, the Yankees will host the Boston Red Sox<\/a> in the Wild Card series for the second consecutive year.br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he does not expect to have Aaron Judge available for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[131994,3080,17463,20,9,11,10,321,12],"class_list":["post-353782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-131994","tag-espn","tag-judge-aaron","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353782","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=353782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}