Captain Aaron Judge was left off the New York Yankees’ roster for their American League Division Series against the Tampa Bay Rays.
The Yankees revealed their 26-man roster for the best-of-five series on Saturday morning, with Game 1 set for 6:38 p.m. ET in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Judge, 34, has not played since Sept. 16 with a strained right calf. The three-time AL MVP landed on the injured list three days later and missed the Yankees’ two-game wild-card sweep against the rival Boston Red Sox earlier this week.
“Ultimately, I obviously decided keeping (Judge off the roster) was the best thing,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Again, I feel like he’s getting close, but I feel like for us to get a version of Aaron back and to win a World Series, I feel like this week’s important for him to continue to work towards getting back. He just started running. He’s hit now a couple of days. So I think another several days of doing that and building some endurance, I think, is important.
“Understanding entirely that we’re guaranteed nothing. (If) we don’t play well, next week we’re home and we don’t get it. But I feel like for us to get a good version of Aaron, this was the right thing to do.”
Judge faced live pitching for the first time since the injury on Monday, was running in the outfield on Tuesday and took batting practice on Wednesday and Thursday. The outfielder participated in workouts on Friday at the Yankees’ minor league facility in Tampa and also at Tropicana Field.
Judge has voiced his determination to return in the postseason, but the team ultimately decided to move forward without him against Tampa Bay. Trent Grisham, Spencer Jones, Heliot Ramos and Giancarlo Stanton are the outfielders on the ALDS roster set to face the Rays. Boone said Stanton is only available for pinch-hitting.
Stanton hasn’t played in a game since April 24.
“If there’s any time to erase a bad year, it’s in October,” Stanton said. “It’s the biggest opportunity to show out for the city and do what we can do.”
Cody Bellinger and Jose Caballero, who can play in both the infield and outfield, are listed as utility players.
Judge largely was ineffective before the calf injury, batting .174 (4-for-23) with a homer and three RBIs in seven games after his Sept. 8 return from the injured list. He had missed more than three months with a fractured rib.
“Yeah, but it’s more about the endurance, more about the going out there and playing a baseball game for three hours,” Boone said. “I mean, he hasn’t done anything really for a couple weeks in that regard. That’s the challenge of all this.”
In 66 games overall this year, Judge batted .241 with a .360 on-base percentage, a .511 slugging percentage, 18 homers and 41 RBIs. That is the fewest number of games Judge has played since his 2016 debut season, not including the 2020 pandemic campaign.
An eight-time All-Star, Judge still is looking for his first World Series championship. He is a career .236 hitter in the postseason with 17 home runs and 41 RBIs in 65 games.
–Field Level Media
