Yankees News: Aaron Judge injury, Josh Donaldson future, Anthony Volpe

The New York Yankees are now out west to kick off a three-game set with the Oakland Athletics, but a lot occurred during their most recent homestand that fans need to stay on top of for the next few weeks.

Their series wins against the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers were nice, but they didn't necessarily make anybody feel better. Let's start with the elephant in the room: Aaron Judge's toe injury.

First, it was a sprained ligament that would be address with a PRP injection. Then it was two sprained ligaments that needed a second PRP injection. Now it's a torn ligament, with manager Aaron Boone refusing to assure fans that Judge would play again in 2023! Why does the team keep doing this?

Unless Judge managed to worsen the injury between June 3 and this past weekend, there's no reason all of this information couldn't have been disclosed nearly three weeks ago. Instead, the Yankees got everyone's hopes up and swiftly crushed them. They continue to blatantly lie and there's no other explanation.

Judge is without a timetable, and at this point we'd place more trust in us bloggers that we would the team, so we're projecting a mid-August return for the reigning MVP.

Yankees News: Aaron Judge injury, Josh Donaldson future, Anthony Volpe breakout

From injury drama to personnel drama. The latter concerns Josh Donaldson, who was benched for the entire series against the Rangers, presumably for his horrific all-around showings against the Red Sox and Mariners in which his defense betrayed him, rendering him useless (if he wasn't already before that).

Shortly before the series finale against Texas on Sunday, Boone decided to hold a meeting with Donaldson right before the manager's pregame presser. The meeting ended up running longer than expected, Boone was late to his presser, and many assumed Donaldson was about to be designated for assignment.

Boone then showed up 30 minutes late to speak with the media and, after all the drama had been leaked, assured everyone Donaldson would be playing a lot for this team moving forward. Donaldson claimed after the game that he and Boone weren't speaking about his exclusion from the lineup. Don't believe any of this!

So what's Donaldson's future with the Yankees? We'd have to guess he'll remain a bench player until he proves otherwise because he has eight hits in 71 plate appearances and is now declining defensively.

Onto better news! How about Anthony Volpe? He got the rally started in Sunday's win, homered in the series-clinching win over the Mariners, and has walked six times over his last nine games.

The numbers still aren't "there," but he's shifted the troubling discourse surrounding him dating back to mid-May and has contributed positively as the veterans around him continue to struggle even more. He took it upon himself to fix his mechanics and it appears he's on his way to getting back on track. No more talk of optioning him to Triple-A, please.

Oh yeah, and praise Billy McKinney, who wouldn't be here if Aaron Hicks wasn't released. Despite Hicks' resurgence in Baltimore, McKinney is already eons better than Hicks would've ever been in New York had he stayed.

MLB News, Rumors and Updates

• Will the Mets sell at the trade deadline? SNY's Andy Martino thinks they could take a variety of approaches.
• The Angels recently traded for Mike Moustakas and Eduardo Escobar. Former Yankee Gio Urshela is out for the year with a hip injury.
• Rumors suggest the Red Sox could use outfielder Adam Duvall as a trade chip at the deadline. What's the point of this team?