Ninety-nine days.
That is how long it has been since Aaron Judge last took the field for the New York Yankees.
Judge played his last game on May 31. On Monday, September 7, the Yankees officially activated their captain from the 60-day injured list, setting up his return Tuesday night against the Colorado Rockies at Yankee Stadium.
His IL placement was retroactive to June 2, but from his final game on May 31 until his activation on September 7, exactly 99 days passed without Judge playing baseball for the Yankees.
He missed 84 games with a stress fracture of his first right rib, by far the longest injured-list absence of his career. Before this season, his longest IL stint came in 2019, when a strained left oblique cost him 54 games.
And for 84 games, the Yankees were forced to confront something that has long been apparent but perhaps never this measurable:
Aaron Judge is not simply part of the Yankees.
He is the franchise.
99 days without the captain
Before the injury, Judge had appeared in 59 games, batting .248 with a .375 on-base percentage and .533 slugging percentage, with 17 home runs and 38 RBIs.
Those numbers were not Judge at the peak of his powers. This is, after all, a three-time MVP who has reset expectations for offensive dominance.
But Judge’s importance has never been contained entirely within his own stat line.
Remove him from the middle of the Yankees’ lineup and everything around him changes. Pitchers can attack hitters differently. The lineup becomes shorter. The margin for another player’s slump gets thinner. The hitter capable of changing a game with one swing, or changing an inning simply by standing in the on-deck circle, is gone.
The Yankees still managed to go 45-39 during Judge’s absence. They survived.
Offensively, however, the summer told a different story.
His absence was felt
June was the Yankees’ first full month without Judge, and the decline was immediate.
New York hit just .222 as a team, the fourth-worst batting average in Major League Baseball. Its .288 on-base percentage ranked third-worst. The Yankees finished the month 12-14.
Then July got even worse.
The Yankees hit .219 with a .281 on-base percentage, the worst OBP in baseball, while striking out 250 times.
“We’ve had long stretches where the offense has struggled. I think a big part of that is not having your guy,” Boone told MLB’s Bryan Hoch. “I also feel like that’s ticked up here in the last couple of weeks, where we’ve really started to play better offensively. We certainly look forward to getting our guy back.”
Baseball is a team sport, and Judge cannot manufacture an offense by himself. But there might not be another player whose presence so dramatically changes the complexion of his team’s lineup.
For years, Judge has been asked to carry the Yankees in a way few modern superstars are asked to carry their franchises.
When the Yankees lose, the questions inevitably find him.
What did Judge do?
What didn’t he do?
Where was his big moment?
It is the burden that comes with being captain of the New York Yankees, particularly as the franchise approaches 17 years without a championship. Judge isn’t measured solely by individual accomplishments. He is measured against the 27 championships that came before him and the expectation that the next one should somehow be his responsibility.
For 99 days, the Yankees got a glimpse of the alternative.
They found out what life looks like when he isn’t there at all.
The offense is finding its footing
Fortunately for New York, Judge returns to a lineup that finally appears to be finding some life.
Spencer Jones has emerged as a legitimate major league contributor after returning from Triple-A, giving the Yankees another dangerous left-handed bat.
The organization also added Luis García Jr. in August after he posted a .283/.313/.560 slash line with 23 home runs and 76 RBIs in 104 games for Washington.
Cody Bellinger is healthy again, too, and entered the week hitting .348 in September. Ben Rice opened the month even hotter at .429.
The result is an offense beginning to resemble something considerably more dangerous.
Entering Judge’s return, the Yankees are hitting .269 in September, eighth-best in Major League Baseball. Compare that with .222 in June and .219 in July.
Now add Aaron Judge back into the middle of it.
That changes the equation considerably.
Court is back in session
Judge returns to an 81-62 Yankees team still within striking distance of the AL East, four games behind the first-place Tampa Bay Rays.
His activation, however, does not mean the Yankees will immediately get a full-strength Judge.
After bypassing a minor-league rehab assignment, he will continue rebuilding his timing and stamina in major league games. Boone has suggested Judge could be limited to five or seven innings early on, easing back into a full workload after more than three months away.
Judge made his reasoning for skipping a rehab stint simple, telling MLB’s Bryan Hoch that he would rather use those at-bats with the Yankees than in the minors.
He has spent the past several weeks steadily ramping up, progressing from hitting and defensive work to on-field swings and live pitching. Some rust should be expected.
That is fine.
The Yankees do not need Judge to immediately look like the three-time MVP version of himself. They need him healthy, seeing major league pitching again and working toward being that player when the calendar turns to October.
Because that is where the weight of being Aaron Judge has always lived.
Back in March, I wrote about the unmatched pressure Judge carries as the face and captain of the Yankees. Individual greatness has never been enough in the Bronx. The standard is championships, and Judge has willingly carried that expectation since choosing New York.
But these 99 days revealed the other side of that burden.
For years, the question has been how much Judge can do for the Yankees.
This summer showed just how much the Yankees depend on him.
They survived without him.
Now the captain returns for the only stretch that has ever truly mattered in the Bronx.
Ninety-nine days later, court is officially back in session.
