New York Yankees fans had just gotten used to having Aaron Judge back in the team's lineup after missing months with a rib fracture. But now, less than 24 hours after he hit his first homer since coming back from the IL, the entire tristate area is facing the prospect of losing him again — and this time, he could take the team's whole season with him.
Judge started the Yankees' series finale against the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday afternoon, batting third and playing right field. But with New York trailing, 2-0, with a man on in the bottom of the sixth, the reigning AL MVP was abruptly pulled for pinch-hitter Heliot Ramos. Immediately fans leapt to a reaggravation of the rib injury. But per a team announcement, Judge left with "lower right leg tightness".
Aaron Judge left the game with lower right leg tightness, Yankees say
— Brendan Kuty 🧟♂️ (@BrendanKutyNJ) September 16, 2026
On the one hand, it's a relief that whatever's ailing Judge is unrelated to his initial injury; it's hard to imagine he would've been able to return at all this season if that were the case, given how long he was out for the first time. Then again, the Yankees don't have the greatest recent track record with big guys suffering calf injuries — remember Giancarlo Stanton? — and any setback to a player like Judge at this time of year has the potential to nerf New York's World Series push before it even begins.
Aaron Judge update: How concerned should Yankees fans be about leg injury?
Of course, we're still largely flying blind here. We don't know what specifically is wrong with Judge's leg, and we don't know whether this was more a precautionary move ahead of an off day on Thursday or a sign that he was in too much pain to finish the game. New York has done everyting possible to ease its franchise player back into game action without the cushion of a rehab assignment, and they'd almost certainly pull him at the first sign of any possible discomfort.
That said, it's hard not to fear the worst here. It sure sounds like Judge could be dealing with some sort of calf strain, and that's a notoriously tricky injury to put behind you. If he's cramping, or just tightened up on a relatively chilly day in Minnesota, great; if not, this is the sort of thing that can linger well into any potential postseason run.
No, Judge isn't Stanton, a player with such a lengthy history of lower-body issues that he more or less stopped running anywhere near full speed in games and still managed to injure not just one but both calves this season. If this is any sort of significant injury, it likely won't be the sort of thing that Judge can put behind him in a week or two. And at that point, the Yankees would be forced to make an impossible choice with their first postseason roster — and Judge would be trying to rush himself back while getting his swing back up to speed in the hothouse of October.
Either way, it's not great news, to say the least. The Yankees have been in hold down the fort mode with Judge out, just trying to scratch and claw (and, mostly, pitch) their way to enough wins to put themselves in position to make a run once their MVP revitalized what's been a pretty brutal offense in the second half. If that plan is now out the window, it's hard to see how this group as currently constituted would have enough to make it back to the World Series, much less go toe-to-toe with a team like the Dodgers.
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