Aaron Judge pulled from Yankees' win over Rangers with 'right hip discomfort'

ARLINGTON, Texas —  Aaron Judge overshadowed Gerrit Cole’s record-setting day last Oct. 5 in this ballpark, his 62nd homer making the ace’s 257 strikeouts, which set a single-season franchise mark, a sidenote.

Judge did it again Thursday night, but there was nothing positive about it.  

Judge, who jammed his right hand on a slide in Wednesday afternoon’s victory over the Twins in Minneapolis and said it was “good” afterward, started in right but was removed in the fourth inning of a 4-2 victory over the Rangers in front of 31,325 at Globe Life Field.  

It had nothing to do with the hand, but it was a residual effect of the awkward head-first slide into third base Wednesday.

The Yankees announced toward the end of the game, in which Cole extended his scoreless inning streak a career-best 26 1/3 innings before allowing two runs in the sixth, that Judge had left with “right hip discomfort.”

Afterward Judge said he wasn’t “concerned” about the injury but did say he expected to be out a “couple of days.”

“Just a little grab in the hip area after that head-first dive the other (day), kind of the whole right side’s been a little locked up,” Judge said. “It wasn’t until the second-to-last swing of the second at-bat (in the second inning) I kind of felt something grab.”

Aaron Boone said he noticed something during the at-bat — Judge went 0-for-2 with two strikeouts — as well.

“I saw his kind of paying attention to it,” Boone said of the hip. “And then I just wanted to get him out of the game.”

Judge, one of two Yankees to play in each of the team’s first 26 games — Anthony Volpe is the other — did not fight his manager on the call, though Boone wouldn’t have listened.

“I was pretty firm with it,” Boone said. “I didn’t leave much to it. I wanted to get him out of there. I didn’t want him to do something more, even if he felt like he could continue to go, I wasn’t going to mess around with it.”

Until Judge came out, the night was about Cole, who is in one of the best stretches of a distinguished career — now 5-0 with a 1.11 ERA in six starts. He allowed two runs, six hits and one walk in 6 2/3 innings. Cole struck out eight, upping his season total to 44 in 40 1/3 innings.

“Great defense, good plan, Trevi (Jose Trevino) has been back there for all of them making good decisions,” Cole said of the scoreless inning streak. “To be able to go on a streak like that, it takes more than one person. It’s really just kind of a testament to how well we’ve done our job as a group.”

Cole pitched with a lead throughout, one Michael King made stand up by throwing the final 2 1/3 innings for his second career save (No. 1 came last season).

DJ LeMahieu stayed red hot, leading off the second against lefty Andrew Heaney, who was a disaster with the Yankees when they acquired him at the 2021 trade deadline (2-2 with a 7.32 ERA), with his third homer of the season. LeMahieu came in with a .317/.396/.463 slash line, with one homer, three doubles and seven RBIs, in his previous 12 games.

Gleyber Torres made it back-to-back blasts, hammering 2-and-0, 93-mph fastball to center, the second baseman’s fourth homer making it 2-0. The Yankees would send nine to the plate, making it 3-0 later in the inning on Volpe’s RBI single.

King took over for Cole with two outs in the seventh and struck out two and walked one the rest of the way.

Not surprisingly, Judge’s departure dominated postgame talk.

“Obviously, not great,” King said. “He’s our captain, our leader, and I know he expects to be out there every day. Anytime he comes out of the game, it’s not great. So I’m just praying for him and hope he’s OK.”