Yankees' Aaron Boone provides positive injury updates on Aaron Judge, DJ LeMahieu
Yankees skipper Aaron Boone was back for his weekly spot with the Talkin’ Yanks podcast, and he provided some positive injury updates on Aaron Judge and DJ LeMahieu.
Judge’s "will he, won’t he" playing status has become a bit of a saga, with the outfielder’s return to the field getting pushed back from the initial date of last Saturday. Judge was then scheduled to take BP on Monday, but ended up only shagging fly balls.
But Boone’s latest prediction for Judge’s return came on Monday, when he said that Judge "should" return to the lineup on Wednesday against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the manager confirmed on Talkin’ Yanks that Judge is expected to be in Wednesday’s lineup.
"I do feel like he is playing tomorrow," Boone said. "That’s my plan. I’ve sent out the lineup with him in it. So if it adjusts it will just be 'Well, I botched it again.' It’s not something I’ve overly concerned with. I think it’s as simple as us being really cautious with the big guy and making sure this doesn’t turn into something."
All of this drama with Judge dates back to Sunday, March 10, when Judge was suspiciously pulled from the lineup after just two at-bats, whereas most of the other starters hit three times.
Boone attempted to clear up the confusion on Tuesday, once again stating that Judge coming our was purely "a coincidence."
"It started with the day he played and he came out, and I think people thought he came out because of the injury, and that was the day where he was like ‘Eh, I’m not feeling great,’ but that was the day that he was lined up with [Trent] Grisham to split center field, so that was actually a coincidence," said Boone. "And then the next day I was on the road in Clearwater with the split squad.
"They got the images because it was the same day they were doing [Gerrit] Cole just to be safe, and we got good news on that, it was negative. I think understandably so and rightfully so, we’ve just been extremely cautious with this and don’t want it to turn into something."
Boone also reiterated that there is no abdominal tear for Judge, and that the outfielder is simply dealing with soreness.
"He really just experienced some soreness in that core area, but that’s why I think they were super cautious with going and making sure they got some images of it," Boone said. "It didn’t show anything, so we’ve just been treating it and making sure he’s ramped up and good to go. … We plan on hopefully having him in there tomorrow for a couple ABs."
As for LeMahieu, Boone explained that while the team was initially concerned with the infielder’s bone bruise in his foot – Boone previously described the injury as "pretty significant" – further testing has shown the infielder won’t miss much time. The only question now is whether or not the injury will hold LeMahieu back from Opening Day.
"That’s the assumption, that DJ is on the IL, and I wouldn’t— I’m just kind of non-committal on it.," said Boone. "I just want to make sure he’s good to go when we start. The news we’ve gotten on him is good. He’s even in here today on the off day and looks even better today.
"I feel like we got a little fortunate, because we were a little concerned there, and then having the X-rays and the CT scan and … the foot specialist here to have an in-person evaluation with him, we feel like we got pretty good news, it’s just a matter of now what’s the timeline? Is it a couple days, is it a week? We’ll see."
