Yankees Leave Aaron Judge Off ALDS Roster Again as Calf Strain Lingers

Aaron Judge is sitting out again.

The New York Yankees announced Saturday morning, Oct. 3, that their captain and three-time AL MVP will not be on the 26-man roster for Game 1 of the American League Division Series against the Tampa Bay Rays. First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m. ET at Tropicana Field, according to CBS Sports and Field Level Media.

Judge, 34, hasn't played since Sept. 16. He strained the soleus muscle in his right calf and landed on the injured list Sept. 19, missing the Yankees' two-game Wild Card sweep of the Boston Red Sox, a series New York won by a combined score of 18-2.

According to USA Today, it's the first time the Yankees have played a postseason game without Judge since 2015.

A Rough Year Before the Calf

The calf strain came on the heels of a much longer absence. Judge missed roughly three months, from May 31 to Sept. 8, with what the team called a fractured rib affecting his right shoulder, according to CBS Sports.

He returned Sept. 8 and played seven games before the calf injury shut him down again. In that stretch he hit .174 (4-for-23) with one home run, three RBI and 13 strikeouts, according to Field Level Media.

For the season, Judge played in just 66 games, batting .241 with a .360 on-base percentage, .511 slugging, 18 home runs and 41 RBI, an .871 OPS. That's the fewest games he's played in a season since his 2016 debut year, not counting the shortened 2020 pandemic schedule, Field Level Media reported.

Postseason Roster Rigidity

Unlike the regular season, where teams can swap players on and off the roster freely, postseason rules are rigid. CBS Sports laid out the mechanics: if the Yankees had rostered Judge and he proved unable to play, removing him for injury would have barred him from the ALCS roster too, under the rule that an injury-replaced player must sit out the following round.

That left the Yankees with a binary choice: trust Judge was ready now, or hold him out and bank on more recovery time before a potential ALCS. They chose the latter. Manager Aaron Boone told reporters Friday, "We'll see," before confirming Judge would keep working out through Tropicana Field and the club's Tampa facilities.

There's also a lineup trade-off buried in the decision. Had Judge served strictly as designated hitter rather than returning to right field, it would have pushed Luis García Jr. to the bench, with Ben Rice sliding to first base. García has hit well since arriving in a trade-deadline deal and went 3-for-5 with a home run in Game 2 of the Wild Card round, per CBS Sports.

The Roster Moves That Did Happen

The only alteration from the Wild Card roster was dropping utilityman Amed Rosario, who had two plate appearances against Boston (a walk and a strikeout), and adding left-handed reliever Ryan Weathers, who's been out since Aug. 22 with a forearm flexor strain, according to Sportsnet.

Giancarlo Stanton remains on the roster despite not playing in a game since April 24 because of calf strains in both legs. He was active for the Wild Card sweep but didn't get an at-bat, Sportsnet reported.

The outfield now runs through Trent Grisham, Spencer Jones, Heliot Ramos and Stanton, with Cody Bellinger and Jose Caballero as multi-position utility pieces, per Field Level Media. Gerrit Cole gets the ball for Game 1, according to Bleacher Report.

What the Yankees Are Up Against

Tampa Bay isn't a soft landing spot. The Rays finished 98-64, the best record in the American League, and won the AL East over New York by 4½ games, according to CBS Sports. They went 55-26 at Tropicana Field this season and allowed the sixth-fewest runs per game in the AL, at 4.01, Sportsnet reported. They also enter rested, having sat out the Wild Card round entirely as the league's top seed.

Judge, for his part, has said he'll "do all he can" to get back on the field, according to USA Today. His postseason track record so far: a .236 average with 17 home runs and 41 RBI across 65 games, still without a World Series ring. Sitting out the ALDS buys him an extra week of recovery time if New York advances. Whether there's an ALCS left to play in is now up to a lineup that already proved it could beat up on Boston without him, but hasn't yet faced a team built like Tampa Bay.