The Yankees Aren't Fooling Anyone, Aaron Judge Isn't Okay!

The Yankees just won 4-of-6 on a difficult stretch against the Houston Asstros and Toronto Blue Jays and as happy as I am about that, I’m worried about something else. The series wins were nice, but we got our first glimpse of Aaron Judge back in the outfield and….it wasn’t great. 

Friday was Judge’s first game playing the outfield since July 25th, and the Blue Jays wasted no time testing his arm out there. It took no time at all for them to see that Judge wasn’t his usual self out there. The Jays had the bases loaded and two outs when a ball was hit into right field. By the time Judge fielded the ball, Daulton Varsho was on second base and was waved home by the Jays third-base coach. It’s a ballsy move when Judge is healthy because he can gun down almost anyone out there. Few outfielders have a better arm but Judge isn’t healthy as we could see. Instead of throwing home, he lobbed a throw to cutoff man Jazz Chisholm Jr who was in close proximity to Judge instead of throwing home which allowed the Blue Jays to score an additional run.

 The Jays weren’t sure which version of Judge they were going to see out there and wanted to test it. “There was a little bit of unknown with how he was going to respond,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said HERE. “He’s got a great arm. At that point, it’s Varsho at second, so you don’t really know because he can run. But we wanted to test it.” Clearly it worked well for them.

Sunday we saw similar plays. In the second inning, another fly ball was hit to Judge. This time, Judge threw to Anthony Volpe instead of throwing home. Later in the inning, another fly ball was hit and Judge lobbed it to Chisholm again. Judge claims his thought process was to just get the ball in as quick as possible by using the cutoff man, which leads a lot of us to ask if he is physically capable of making the throw.

It’s a fair question to ask. If he can make the throw, why isn’t he? And if he can’t make the throw then why is he out there? It’s the Yankees trying to get creative to get Judge back in the outfield. We all want to see Judge back in the outfield, but considering Aaron Boone said “I don’t think we’re going to see him back to throwing like he normally does at any point this year,” just three weeks ago, check it our HERE if you missed it. Then he tried to walk it back the same day and said “Maybe that’s a little (overstated).” It’s concerning and infuriating.

So after two nights in the outfield, Boone’s comments seem to be correct. Judge is clearly not at full strength, and the Yankees are trying to get cute and creative at this point. The Blue Jays exposed it first, and now it could really bite the Yankees in the ass….especially if playing Judge in the outfield makes this injury worse. 

The Yankees hope he can get back to as close to 100% as possible over the coming weeks. In the mean time though, Boone is gonna give soundbites like “We’re handling it how we handle it, OK?” and hope and pray for a miracle….because that’s what the Yankees do.