Yankees place Aaron Judge on injured list with calf strain

For the second time in less than a week, the Yankees set to place an irreplaceable power hitter on the injured list.

On Friday evening, manager Aaron Boone told reporters that Aaron Judge was heading IL with a Grade 1 calf strain. Judge came out of Tuesday’s game in the sixth inning, but Boone downplayed it, saying he just wanted to get the right fielder some rest. That evolved to “lower-body tightness”, and now finally a diagnosis.

“He’s got a very mild strain of his calf. It’s something that I think he really wants to work through here and wants to be out there and feels like it’s a day-to-day thing which it very well may be,” Boone explained to Lindsey Adler. The team hopes he can get back out on the field in ten days.

Judge, 28, has hit .290./343/.758 with nine home runs (192 wRC+) in 2020. He’s pulling the ball again, apparently reverting back into 2017 form. Losing him for any period of time makes the Yankees a significantly weaker club, especially with Giancarlo Stanton on the IL for what could be the remainder of the season.

As a corresponding move, the team has called up Thairo Estrada. It’s notable that the club goes to him instead of Miguel Andújar, leading one to think that Mike Tauchman and Clint Frazier will take on full-time roles for the immediate future.

Here’s hoping Judge can get back soon. It won’t be the same without him.