Yankees' latest injury update on Aaron Judge suggests his season could be in jeopardy

Aaron Judge remained out of the Yankees lineup for the series finale against the Guardians, which was thankfully a razor thin 2-1 victory to avoid the sweep. Right after the game concluded, Aaron Boone kicked off his presser, without being asked a question, by telling the media he had no update on Judge.

Less than an hour later, it was reported Judge was going to see a specialist who deals with vascular procedures and thoracic outlet syndrome, the latter of which is an injury that's (more times than not) a death knell for pitchers.

On the position player side of things, we don't have a whole lot of evidence outside of Jared Walsh and Mike Zunino ... so yeah, not the greatest example. It's more prevalent in pitchers, and the surgery typically required a 10-month recovery period. If that's the case with Judge, he will miss the remainder of 2026 and part of 2027.

No wonder the Yankees were being vague and distant about this when the news first dropped on Tuesday. No wonder there weren't any answers on Wednesday despite the fact Judge was getting a second opinion as of Tuesday evening. Something much more serious is at play here.

Again, there is a chance all of this is precautionary. It is Aaron Judge. He is baseball. Don't you think the Dodgers would act similarly with Shohei Ohtani? In fact, they did when they only allowed him to make 14 total starts across his first two full seasons in LA. They were as risk-averse as they could possibly be.

Aaron Judge injury update has Yankees fans hanging in the balance

Obviously, the Yankees are hoping to rule out thoracic outlet surgery. They're hoping to avoid any surgery! They cannot be without Judge for an extended period of time if they want to make a run at the AL East.

It's just really troubling with how this has all progressed. Judge supposedly played through this discomfort for about a month, slumped terribly through it, and then it was addressed when the team's schedule started to pick up against crucial AL opponents.

We're not in the business of relaying medical information, so check out this MLB.com article about thoracic outlet syndrome that details everything you need to know.

Feel free to call Yankees fans performative or hyperbolic all you want. They're all freaking out from every corner of social media. But there's a legitimate reason for it. This went from "Aaron Judge slump" to "he's dealing with discomfort" to "he has a bone bruise" to "it's affecting his rib/shoulder/clavicle" to "he needs more imaging and tests" to "he's seeing a doctor that specializes in potentially diagnosing season-ending surgery." The longer these processes are drawn out, the worse the news is. It's just the way it goes.

Yankees fans have been left on the worst cliffhanger possible as they wait for the next update. And we're sure the delivery of said information won't be any smoother or comforting than it's been this entire time.

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