Yankees News: Aaron Boone is confident Aaron Judge’s shoulder injury is not a long-term thing

Yankees star right fielder Aaron Judge still hasn’t made his spring training debut yet because of right shoulder soreness. Judge had an MRI on Saturday and is expected to undergo more tests during Monday’s off-day but manager Aaron Boone is still optimistic that the injury won’t be a long-term thing.

It’s encouraging to hear the Yankees are still confident that Judge’s injury won’t keep him out for a long period of time because the majority of the fanbase sure isn’t. It’s hard to be optimistic that Judge is going to be good to go on Opening Day after they have already seen three of their top players go down with an injury over the course of the last month. This, of course, comes after a season in which the Yanks set a major league record for stints on the IL with 39.

Luis Severino is out for the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery last Thursday and James Paxton won’t be back until May or June after he had back surgery on February 5th. Both of their respective injuries reportedly started bothering them during last year’s postseason and lingered throughout the offseason which makes the news even more maddening.

Giancarlo Stanton, who missed the majority of the 2019 season due to injury came into camp totally healthy until he suffered a Grade 1 calf strain while doing outfield drills last week. Stanton hasn’t been ruled out to return for the start of the regular season, but I’d bet against it happening. I hate to say this, but he’s quickly becoming the new Jacoby Ellsbury (a bigger, more jacked-up version).

And let’s not forget about Aaron Hicks who’s going to be out until June or July as he continues to recover from Tommy John surgery in late October.

Judge apparently started feeling discomfort in his right shoulder before position players arrived at camp two weeks ago. The Yankees than shut him down from hitting and he hasn’t been able to take on-field batting practice since. He recently started taking swings again, but this past weekend he felt discomfort in his right pectoral muscle while doing some work in an indoor batting cage. That led to the MRI on Friday which came back negative.

Here’s Boone on the latest development per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com:

"“It’s a similar feeling he had when he was down here a couple weeks early, working and going through everything,” Boone said. “He was getting that discomfort, and it returned when he really started ramping up the last few days.”“I feel good about the prognosis of things, even though in the immediate [picture] — because of what has happened and what went on last year — the flames get a little fanned.”"

There’s still no timetable for his return, but we’ll likely find out a lot more about Judge’s prognosis within the next 24 hours after he goes through some more tests on Monday. We’ll hope for the best but also expect the worst because of how things have played out for the Yankees when it comes to injuries since the start of spring training a season ago.

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