Yankees: Aaron Judge still not close to returning anytime soon

The Yankees are getting closer to full strength with both Gary Sanchez and Didi Gregorius possibly returning from injury this weekend. However, the news on Aaron Judge is not as promising. Judge still hasn’t swung a bat and the timetable on when we might see him back in the lineup is anyone’s guess right now.

The news on Sanchez and Didi is a huge positive for the Yankees but it’s likely they’ll still be without their superstar slugger as we enter the last month of the season. There’s no way of knowing when Judge might return until the pain in that fractured right wrist is completely gone and according to Judge, he’s still experiencing some pain.

The original three-week timetable announced by the Yankees at time of the injury five weeks ago was way off and now all the team can do is wait and hope the wrist heals soon. Before Tuesday night’s game against the White Sox Judge spoke to the media and said he has no answers right now as to when he might return. Per Dan Martin of the New York Post:

“I’ve got no answer,” Judge said Tuesday. “I don’t want to put myself in a box. When I’m ready, I’m ready.I’ll wake up one of these days and feel good. I’m just waiting for that day.”

Judge’s words obviously aren’t very encouraging for the Yankees and their fans to hear, but there’s not much else he can do. There’s only so much conditioning and outfield drills he can work on until he gets cleared to swing again.

Judge also talked about the pain he’s experiencing on a scale of 1 to 10 and compared it to what it was two weeks ago. Per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com:

Again this isn’t very promising news and makes you wonder how late into September we’ll get before we see Judge again.

The Yankees have played OK in the absence of Judge (19-12), especially since their nightmare series in Boston, so they should be able to continue winning at a high rate once Sanchez and Didi get back.

They have enough offense to beat anyone in September even without Judge and his 26 home runs, but they have missed his gold-glove caliber defense out in right field. Since Judge went down most of the starts in right have gone to Neil Walker and Shane Robinson because Giancarlo Stanton has been dealing with a tight hamstring for over a month.

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Walker had never played outfield prior to this season and Robinson is a 33-year-old journeyman who stands at 5’9 with a below average arm. Neither one has really made errors since Judge went down but we’ve seen both of them come up short on plays that Judge makes with relative ease. They show up as hits in the box score, but they’re plays that have led to runs.

At the time of his injury, there was the belief that Brian Cashman would acquire a veteran like Curtis Granderson or Adam Jones to help out but he said the cost to get another outfielder was too high. Now we’re just two days away from the August 31st deadline and it’s probably too late to make an impactful trade.

Unfortunately, Clint Frazier has been out dealing with post-concussion symptoms for the entirety of Judge’s recovery and no one knows when he might return either. He would’ve helped a lot, but like Judge, this is something out of his control and you can’t help but feel terrible for him.

The good news is that the Yankees do expect Judge at some point in September and as long as that’s still the case there’s no need to panic. The hope is that he comes back within the next two to three weeks and not closer to the end of the month because you want him to get as many at-bats as he can under him before the playoffs.

It might take him some time to wipe the rust off and get back into a rhythm, but if he can get back with a week or two left to play he and the Yankees should be fine heading into October.