Aaron Boone let an Aaron Judge injury admission slip postgame that should worry Yankees fans

What could've and should've been a simple, innocent, sleepy 2-0 Yankees loss to end an otherwise solid series in Minnesota ended up as a four-hour epoch that broke fans' hearts seven different ways and drained the roster's batteries instead. The final two-plus hours of the game, as gutting as they were, were mainly an extended prelude to Aaron Boone's postgame availability, when he'd speak in greater detail about the injury that sent Aaron Judge beyond the bench to the clubhouse.

If not for Judge's injury, the Yankees probably would've won this game. He likely wouldn't have come up as small as Heliot Ramos did with the bases loaded and nobody out in the 12th. But that's very far beyond the point. Instead of a rib recurrence or an oblique pull, it turns out Judge was felled by "lower right leg tightness". When did he suffer the malady? Goodness knows, but Jomboy's pinpointed strange jog on a play that transpired nowhere near him is probably a good starting point.

If the Yankees have any chance of advancing in October, they cannot spam Ramos or another inferior backup in Judge's place. There is no way around the hole his absence creates. Their run will end before it begins; this is not worth debating.

That's why, while the hope is that this leg issue is minor and Judge's removal was mostly precautionary, we won't be fully settled until he's both back in action and looks like himself. Boone did nothing to calm nerves in the postgame scrum when, in the space where he usually deflects and defers, he let one accidental bit of realism slip.

"Hopefully, we can get it treated and knock it out and he can be a factor at some point," Boone told Meredith Marakovits after a minute of questioning.

Oh. At some point. With 10 games left and 13 days until the start of the Wild Card round. Good luck with that.

Aaron Boone hopes Aaron Judge will be factor for the Yankees "at some point" after lower leg injury

Add (checks around) every fan on earth to that list of people who hope Judge will be a factor at "some point" soon, such as Game 1 of the Wild Card series against the Boston Red Sox. With the AL East now largely out of the question, barring a miracle, clinching homefield over Boston and getting Judge prepared for a return to action in two weeks should be the team's primary goal.

A leg injury - twinge, soreness, stiffness, what have you - is preferable to the doomsday scenarios the darkest corner of Twitter concocted when Judge disappeared (after giving one of his trademark grimaces at the plate earlier in the contest). But Boone's stone-faced admission (or refusal to put a timeline on Judge's ability to be a factor) was admittedly worrisome. The team has shied away of promising too much from Judge's recovery this year. Maybe this is just another example of that trend. But it still didn't protect the fanbase's sanity much when Boone let it rip.

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