Yankees' injury nightmare continues with Nestor Cortes IL trip, Aaron Judge toe worry

Aaron Judge might be 95% superhuman, but the 5% that's regular human got banged up on Saturday night's game-saving catch.

Alarm bells went off when Judge wasn't penciled into Sunday night's ESPN showcase Yankees lineup, and skeptics about the "two days off" method were correct in assuming something beyond "maintenance" was going on with Judge.

Nearly 24 hours later, his toe remains sore, and he's likely not going to be available off the bench for Sunday's action. Monday's an off day; ideally, he returns rested and fit for a three-game series with the White Sox.

These types of things can linger, though. Who can forget DJ LeMahieu's mysterious toe that wrecked half of his 2022 season, even though surgery was avoided?

Yankees stars Aaron Judge (toe), Nestor Cortes (shoulder) injured

What's the old adage? "Get three stars back, lose four"?

Just two days after the Yankees welcomed Josh Donaldson, Giancarlo Stanton and Tommy Kahnle back to the active roster, they've now lost Greg Allen, Ryan Weber, Nestor Cortes and Judge.

Judge, ideally, will only be down a few days. Allen and Weber hit the Injured List on Saturday, and early fears are that Weber, who's been a surprisingly reliable reliever thus far in 2023, needs Tommy John surgery.

Cortes? The team isn't entirely sure what's wrong with him, but the issue resides in the shoulder. He'll (finally) hit the IL for further evaluation after struggling mightily beyond the fourth inning all season long and reportedly struggling to recover between starts.

Aaron Boone believes the Yankees' left-hander will only be down for close to the minimum, and will miss "one or two" starts. The team won't know for certain until his Monday MRI, though, and judging by his season's worth of trauma so far, it might be worth keeping him on pause until they can locate the reset button.

Just another Sunday night with the New York Yankees. They've found ways to persevere every time they've been hit with troublesome news this season, 2019-style. Time to look forward to the next solution.