Yankees Lose Aaron Judge to Injury After Hit by Pitch

Aaron Judge left the Yankees’ game against the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday, June 18 after he was by a pitch.

Leading off the third inning, Judge took a 1-2 pitch off his left hand. The Yankees captain immediately tossed the bat aside as the Yankees training staff came out to check on him. He ultimately stayed in the game, coming around to score on a Giancarlo Stanton single. Judge played the next inning in centerfield before Trent Grisham pinch hit for him in the fourth. The Yankees led 3-0 at the time.

The incident has overshadowed a showdown between the two top teams in the American League East. New York came into the game with a 1.5-game lead on the Orioles, but a 5-5 record in their last 10 has allowed Baltimore to gain ground.

Judge will undergo imaging Tuesday evening and the Yankees’ team physician will evaluate him after that, according to the YES Networks’ Meredith Marakovits.

Before Judge’s injury, there was plenty of optimism in the Bronx with Judge on a hot streak and reigning Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole due to make his season debut on Wednesday.

An Aaron Judge Injury Would Be a Crushing Blow

Judge is more than just the biggest slugger in the Yankees’ lineup and the best home run hitter in the game. He’s the heartbeat of the team. He’s also one of the most reliable players they have.

The Yankees have been fortunate so far that Anthony Volpe has had a strong second year and Giancarlo Stanton has started to hit. But Stanton is injury prone, and Volpe is mired in a two-week-long slump.

Juan Soto has been consistent as could be, and he and Judge feed off each other’s success. They each benefit from pitchers not being able to pitch around the other.

If Judge misses time, the Yankees don’t have a player close to his caliber to plug in. Grisham doesn’t hit, and Oswaldo Cabrera — who can move to the outfield — has fallen hard back to Earth after a hot start.

Look to the minors and it’s even more bleak, with young slugger Jasson Dominguez and prospect Everson Pereira both on the injured list.

The Historic Implications

The Yankees captain is again on a torrid home run pace with 26 long balls through 75 games. That puts him on pace for 56, within striking distance of his own American League home run record (62).

That’s made even more impressive by Judge enduring the worst start to a season in his big-league career. Through the Yankees’ first 23 games, Judge was hitting .174 with only 3 home runs. Since then, he’s hitting .360 with an OPS of 1.334.

That turnaround, coupled with the balance the Yankees have in their lineup, caused former All-Star Jimmy Rollins to predict on Monday that Judge would break his own home run record.

“His lineup is completely different around him,” Rollins said on an appearance on Bleacher Report Walk-Off Live. “When he was breaking the record… not that he was the only one in the lineup, but he was the major threat in that lineup…When you’re playing the Orioles, they’re going to decide who they have to pitch to, whoever’s the hottest is probably not going to get pitched to, but if that man touches the ball, it has a chance of going out every single time.”

If Judge is out for any prolonged period, his odds of breaking that record would, of course, decrease dramatically.

The Yankees, however, would gladly sacrifice that bit of history to have a healthy Judge around in October as they take a crack at something far more important.