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The New York Yankees tried to give Aaron Judge’s hip a chance to heal with a few days on the bench, but to no avail: On Monday the team finally placed the reigning AL MVP on the 10-day IL, retroactive to April 28.
Prior to tonight’s game, the Yankees made the following roster moves:
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) May 1, 2023
• Placed OF Aaron Judge on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to 4/28) with a right hip strain.
• Recalled INF/OF Franchy Cordero (#33) from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
That would make Judge eligible to return at some point in the middle of next week, which seems to be a real possibility given the improvement he felt over the weekend. Still, any time without their captain and offensive catalyst will be a devastating blow to a Yankees team already short on run production with Giancarlo Stanton, Harrison Bader and Josh Donaldson also out. The team scored just eight runs in an ugly four-game series against the Texas Rangers over the weekend, and with Luis Severino and Carlos Rodon still not back, the rotation doesn’t seem to have the ability to pick up the slack.
Franchy Cordero, who got off to a hot start before tailing off badly and earning a demotion to Triple-A, was called up in a corresponding move.
In the final year of his contract after extension talks with the team had broken down, Judge delivered a walk year for the ages in 2022, leading baseball in homers (an American League-record 62), RBI, OBP, slugging percentage and OPS and edging out Shohei Ohtani for AL MVP honors. He nearly gave the entire tristate area a heart attack that winter, amid reports that he was considering signing with the San Francisco Giants, but he eventually wound up resigning with the team that drafted him on a hefty nine-year, $360 million deal. He’d been living up to it so far this season, with six homers and two steals over his first 26 games even as the rest of the lineup disintegrated around him.
Alas, Judge also comes with a bit of an injury history, as is the norm for a player his size. The outfielder played just 242 games from 2019 to 2021 due to everything from his oblique to his back to his shoulder to his calf, and now a Yankees team that gave itself no margin for error with its passive offseason will have to try and tread water in his absence.