The New York Yankees have decided on Aaron Judge’s status for the Wild Card series.
According to Jack Curry of the YES Network, Judge (calf) will not be on the Yankees’ Wild Card roster for their series against the Boston Red Sox, which begins Tuesday.
Judge has had a difficult season and was placed on the injured list for the second time this year with a calf strain. Before landing on the shelf again, the 34-year-old went just 4-for-23 at the plate in seven games after he returned from a three-month stint on the IL with a right rib stress fracture.
The news that Judge was officially left off New York’s Wild Card roster should not come as much of a surprise. Yankees manager Aaron Boone announced on September 22 that they expected to be without the three-time AL MVP for the series.
Judge, however, rebutted Boone’s comments the very next day, telling Jorge Castillo of ESPN that he was preparing to play in the wild-card round.
The Yankees ultimately made the final call to have Judge sit out of the series, even after he tried to make his case Monday afternoon during batting practice.
Even if Judge made the roster, his role in the series seemed a bit unclear. Despite taking swings for the first time since his calf injury, Judge told reporters on Monday that he had been limited to running on a zero-gravity treadmill and had yet to run the bases.
If there is any hope for the Yankees in this series, it is that they went 52-43 without Judge during the regular season.
Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series gets underway Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. ET with Cam Schlittler on the mound for the Yankees and Payton Tolle for the Red Sox.
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