MLB’s collective bargaining agreement makes Minor League rehab assignments optional rather than mandatory, allowing an injured player to return directly to the big leagues once the club determines he is ready. And that is the shortcut Aaron Judge used on September 8, returning from a broken rib, a call former Yankees manager Buck Showalter later said he’d like to be explained, adding that a calf issue is “a different animal” than the injuries Judge has shaken off before. Eleven days and seven games later, Judge was 4-for-23 with 13 strikeouts and one extra-base hit, and by September 19 he was back on the injured list, this time with a strained right calf.

That second blow became concerning this week, when manager Aaron Boone told reporters the Yankees don’t expect their captain to be active for the American League Wild Card Series against the Red Sox, saying: “We’re planning on him not being a part of that.” Hours later, on a Foul Territory podcast, host A. J. Pierzynski turned the conversation toward what New York actually has left without him.

“And that’s kind of been the thing that’s hurt the Yankees in the postseason. And honestly, like, in extra-inning games during the last few regular seasons too, is they can’t string together a hit or two. If they don’t hit a home run, they don’t win. And losing Judge, and also we always forget about Stanton. Stanton has been a monster in the postseason the last few years for them. So will they be able to hit enough, not just home runs, against the Red Sox, who actually pitch really well, to win that series and then move deep into the postseason?” Pierzynski said, delivering a major reality check for the Yankees, before

“Clutch hitting, as crazy as it sounds, that could be the difference in everything for this team,” Adam Ottavino added.

Judge missed more than three months this season with the rib injury before returning in September, now finishing at .241 with 18 homers and 41 RBIs in just 66 games. A jarring comedown from the .331 average, 53 homers, and batting title he produced in 2025. The Yankees have gone 41-25 in games he’s played this year and 48-41 in games he’s missed, a gap wide enough to explain why New York, despite owning the best run differential in the American League at plus-137, enters the postseason having just been eliminated from the AL East race and settling for a wild card berth six games behind Tampa Bay.

That wild card spot sets up a rematch. New York and Boston occupy the AL’s top two wild card slots for the second straight year, and the two are expected to meet again in a rerun of last October, when the Yankees beat the Red Sox on Cam Schlittler’s 12-strikeout gem in a decisive Game 3, with Judge healthy enough to drive in a run of his own along the way.

This year, the roles are reversed. The Red Sox arrive having survived a 10-17 start that got Alex Cora fired on April 25, only to catch fire under Triple-A manager Chad Tracy, who guided Boston to a franchise-record-tying 15-game winning streak and a 27-3 stretch through the heart of the summer. A turnaround the club rewarded this same Tuesday by removing his interim tag entirely. New York, by contrast, is limping in on a two-game skid.

And New York has struck out 1,394 times this season, sixth-most in the majors, prompting ESPN’s David Schoenfield to flag the strikeout rate as a potential “fatal flaw” given that no team in the bottom half of that category has reached the World Series since the universal DH arrived in 2022.

Without Judge, the likely lineup (Ben Rice, Cody Bellinger, Heliot Ramos, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and rookies Spencer Jones and George Lombard Jr. among them) tilts left-handed against a Boston pitching staff that is itself stocked with lefties, exactly the kind of platoon mismatch Judge’s presence used to erase. Trent Grisham remains sidelined by a hamstring strain, and Giancarlo Stanton’s return is considered unlikely.