How Long Was Aaron Judge Playing Hurt?

By EJ Fagan

June 5, 2026

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The following post comes from EJ Fagan's Substack, Baseball Is Life. It is shared with permission.

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Anthony Rizzo’s concussion. Anthony Volpe’s torn labrum. A half dozen Giancarlo Stanton injuries. Carlos Rodon’s elbow. Add Aaron Judge’s broken rib to the list of Yankees pretending they are healthy enough to play when they clearly aren’t.

Judge had been mired in his worst offensive stretch since he became a Baseball God in 2022, a time which includes playing through two injuries. A Redditor thinks that Judge could have gotten hurt after this May 3rd catch, so let’s use that as our presumptive injury date.

Since then, Judge has hit .226/.336/.409 in 111 plate appearances. If we cut it off more recently, Judge has a .613 OPS since the start of the May 11th series against Baltimore and a .558 OPS since the start of the Toronto-Tampa homestand.

Why did it take this long to take Judge out of the lineup? Something was clearly off. It’s not that hard to go get an X-ray on your ribs. We should have not only been spared three weeks of a wasted middle-of-the-lineup batter but should be three more weeks into his 4-6 week recovery time.

This incident is just yet another case of the Yankees having the exact wrong attitude about injuries. They have a culture of not complaining for as long as possible, no matter how obvious it is that a player is struggling. Aaron Boone will answer questions for weeks by insisting that a player is perfectly healthy. Then suddenly we hear that a player finally went for some testing and they found what everyone else could have guessed long ago.

It’s tough guy garbage. The reality is that the Yankees would have been better off with Jose Cabarello at the plate than Judge over the last three weeks. And they would presumably accelerate his return to play.

I guess there’s good news. Judge doesn’t have a potentially career ending injury. He’ll be back at some point in the late summer. The injury also suggests that Judge isn’t old yet, and can still hit at his post-2022 level when healthy. Maybe he’ll even be fresher for the playoffs.

Jasson Dominguez and Giancarlo Stanton are both on track to return next week. I assume that Spencer Jones, who has been solid since returning to Triple-A, will replace him on the roster for a few games.

But man, this stinks. At least we have Ben Rice.