Wide range of Aaron Judge updates has to frustrate Yankees fans

In conclusion, New York Yankees fans still know very little about Aaron Judge's status. Because that's what happens when you're bombarded with all different types of information from various sources speaking on the matter.

It all started on Tuesday afternoon when Jim Bowden of The Athletic apparently said the Yankees are expected to have Judge back in the lineup this coming weekend against the Baltimore Orioles ... but nobody has any idea why he might think that.

Then, manager Aaron Boone spoke to the media before the Subway Series opener against the Mets and once again gave us an answer that only confused fans more. Judge is "day-to-day" yet still needs to make more progress in order to ramp up and potentially return against the O's? What does that mean?

It means there's no definitive answer and that we're likely in the same spot we always were: this is an extremely difficult injury to navigate and the timeline remains under wraps because it's likely longer or more uncertain than the Yankees are leading on.

Aaron Judge injury update: Yankees remaining vague and frustrating

Why are fans getting more information from an unnamed talent evaluator instead of Boone? Per Newday's Erik Boland, Judge hit a long home run during his simulated game in Tampa on Tuesday, "appeared to be moving around well," and didn't appear to be favoring his toe.

Boone claimed he didn't have the "final report" yet at the time of his presser so he couldn't provide what the talent evaluator did a few hours later, but Boone also provided nothing definitive ... so shouldn't have this just waited until tomorrow when all of the information was available? The Yankees manager just talked about buildup, and pretty much said "we'll see" over and over.

Let's throw another reporter into the mix, shall we? Pete Caldera of the Bergen Record provided his two cents and speculated what he got out of Boone talking about Judge. His guess is Judge returns by the first week of August. But again, just a guess. Nothing rooted in evidence.

Boone said Judge played in simulated games on Tuesday and got in five innings of work with at-bats, field work and running the bases. The hope is he gets more volume as the week progresses, but there's probably no way of knowing that since Judge's status moving forward will remain "tolerance-based."

Next up? Probably a swath of guesses or inconclusive evaluations after Tuesday night's game or Wednesday morning that will leave a lot of left to be desired.

It's not necessarily anyone's fault because of how objectively complicated Judge's issue is from a medical standpoint, but fans know at this point it's hard to trust the Yankees with any injury-related info/updates they relay to the public.