Yankees: Still no timetable for Aaron Judge’s return from the DL

The Yankees were hopeful that Aaron Judge would only miss three weeks after he fractured wrist back on July 26th. However, we’re now 15 days into his DL stint and Judge has yet to swing a bat.

The Yankees are 7-6 since their All-Star slugger went down following Thursday night’s win over the Rangers, but if they still have any hopes of catching Boston atop the division they need Judge back in the lineup ASAP. According to Judge himself, he still thinks the Yanks have a shot.

He spoke to reporters Friday morning at the Oakley Store in Manhattan where he was announced as the newest member of Team Oakley. I was fortunate enough to be there representing Yanks Go Yard and Judge discussed his newest partnership as well as the wrist and the team’s chances of catching the rival Red Sox.

“August just started. A lot of crazy things have happened. So for us, our goal has always been the division. It doesn’t matter how many games we’re back. We’re going to keep fighting for that.”

The Yankees are eight games back following a Boston loss last night and have a chance to make some ground up if they can take full advantage of their favorable August schedule. Judge and Gary Sanchez probably won’t be back until the end of the month but he’s remained optimistic during his recovery and still believes he’s on the right track.

“It’s feeling alright. It could be better,” Judge said. “I’m still right on track. I feel like hopefully swinging the bat here in the next couple of days, next week, at some time. We don’t really have a timetable on that yet. I know shortly we should start ramping it up and get going, swinging again.”

Judge obviously isn’t going to be back by the original three-week timetable, but once he gets the OK from the doctors to start swinging again it shouldn’t be long before he’s back playing in games. In the meantime, Judge is confident that his teammates will continue to elevate their play during his absence after he was asked about how tough it’s been watching these games from the dugout.

“It’s tough, but like I said, we’ve got a good team. They’re going to pick us up. They’re going to pick all of us up. That’s the one thing I heard from all of my teammates; they heard about the injury and how long I’d be out. They said hey man, we got this. We’re going to keep doing our thing and keep holding it down until you get back. They’ve been doing that.”

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The Yankees need Judge (and Sanchez) to reach their ultimate goal of winning a championship, but they have the pieces to win at a high rate until hey return. As I said before their remaining August schedule is very weak. The only team they play with a winning record from now until Labor Day is Tampa (58-57) at home so they should be able to go on a nice run here.

Anytime you lose a player of Judge’s caliber it’s going to hurt a lot, but his injury did come at a good time on the schedule since he should be back for the entire month of September.

We’ll see where the Yankees stand in the division but by then they should be able to separate themselves atop the Wild Card standings and secure home field in the one-game playoff for the second year in a row.

That wasn’t the goal coming into the season, but the Red Sox continue to win at a historic pace. The Yankees are also likely to eclipse the 100 win mark and as we saw last season they’re more than capable of making a deep playoff run as the Wild Card team. That’s not to say to division is completely out of reach because the Yanks still have six more games left against Boston.

By the time those games are played both Judge and Sanchez will be back and the team will finally be at full strength. The odds are very much against them but if they can cut the division lead to five or six games by the end of this month who knows what could happen? As Judge said himself, crazier things have happened.