Aaron Judge and Aaron Boone agree that the Yankees captain is doing everything he can to get back on the field as soon as he can.
They spoke “a little bit,” the manager said Thursday, about the two things they apparently disagreed on:
First, Boone saying Tuesday he did not expect Judge to return in time for the wild-card series before Judge said Wednesday his goal is to be ready for Game 1 of that series; and second, the manager publicly conceding Judge’s calf strain is “moderate,” while the notoriously private — at least on the subject of injuries — Judge said he didn’t “know why [Boone] used those words.”
“I don’t want to get too much into that [conversation with Judge],” Boone said Thursday when asked about the two seemingly not being on the same page. “At the end of the day, we’re all in this together. And in his case, trying to get him right and get him healthy so he can be an option for us here at some point.
“But we’re also going to listen to the injury. I see it as just a passionate player that’s doing all he can to get back for his teammates.”
What others might interpret as annoyance or anger from Judge, Boone said was “passion.”
Boone — who all along has said he is not ruling out Judge returning in time for the postseason (even if it seemed and seems unlikely) — also said the roster decisions for a round that will begin Tuesday may not be made until Tuesday morning.
Thus, the Yankees will give Judge as much time as possible to recover from a calf strain suffered Sept. 16 — which was just seven games after he returned from a rib fracture that cost him more than three months — before declaring him in or out.
“The bottom line is Aaron and I have always had an amazing relationship and still do and will,” Boone said before finishing the series against the Rays in The Bronx. “This is about a player that, again, is pouring everything he possibly can into being ready, and we’re going to support that.
“And when he’s ready, we’ll make a call of when that is based on how he’s doing.”
Both superstar and manager have emphasized this week that Judge is doing everything in his power to build up quickly and be ready for a three-game series that almost certainly will be against the Red Sox, but Judge — who received a platelet-poor plasma injection Monday — is still limited barely a week after suffering the injury.
Notably, he is not swinging yet.
“He’s doing all the things in the training room, all the modalities, that you can take advantage of,” Boone said of Judge, who plans to return as a right fielder and not a DH. “He’s moving on the treadmill, things like that, doing the different exercises to get the calf healed.
“Doing everything he can to make that as speedy as possible.”
