Yankees News: Aaron Judge out indefinitely with a stress fracture in his rib

After weeks of speculation, we finally know what’s wrong with Aaron Judge. The Yankees revealed on Friday that he has a stress fracture in his rib. He will rest for the next two weeks before being re-evaluated, but there’s a chance he could end up needing surgery.

According to Yankees manager Aaron Boone the injury to Judge dates back to last September when he hurt himself trying to make a diving catch. Judge said he experienced pain in his neck and shoulder area so he got some test done but there was no fracture shown so he continued to play after receiving a cortisone shot.

The injury might’ve hampered Judge throughout the Yankees postseason run when he hit .265 in 34 at-bats with only one home run and two RBI, but that wasn’t going to prevent him from playing. Here’s what Judge had to say following the news on Friday, per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com:

“I felt a crack. I felt a pop,” Judge said. “But you’ve got adrenaline flowing, you’ve got the postseason coming up, and that’s the main concern. I want to be out there on the field. All the strength tests I did, everything was coming back all right, and I just knew there was some pain in the shoulder. I got a couple shots and got ready for the postseason.”

The discomfort carried over into the offseason and Judge stopped his on-field hitting in January after arriving early to the Yankees spring training complex in Tampa. Then once camp began he began to feel soreness in his pectoral area while hitting indoors and the Yankees shut him down.

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This is yet another injury to a key Yankees player that dates back to last September and October. James Paxton’s back issues started during his final start of the regular season and Luis Severino’s forearm began bothering him during his second start of the postseason against the Astros in Game 3 of the ALCS.

It’s incredibly frustrating to see all these injuries carry over into the winter and the beginning of spring training. You can’t help but wonder why nothing was done during the offseason in all three cases because now Sevy is done for the year and both Judge and Paxton could miss significant time to begin the season.

The Yankees training staff definitely probably deserves most of the blame but some of it also has to go to the players for not speaking up. It’s one thing to fight through pain over the course of 162 games, but when an injury from the previous season continues to linger during the winter than something is probably wrong and it needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

Judge will rest for the next two weeks but surgery is still possible although he and Boone both seem confident that it won’t come to that because the bone is already healing. That’s somewhat encouraging however given how things have played out for the Yanks for over a year now it’s hard to be overly optimistic about anything injury-related.

With Judge out indefinitely and Giancarlo Stanton in the process of rehabbing a calf strain, the Yankees outfield is going to have a different look to begin the season. Other than Brett Gardner starting in center nothing is set in stone, but it’s safe to assume Clint Frazier, Mike Tauchman and Miguel Andujar are the most likely options to fill the corner spots.