Rangers' Nathan Eovaldi throws three-hit shutout against Yankees

ARLINGTON, Texas — Aaron Judge avoided a stay on the injured list (at least for now).

Although an MRI taken on Friday showed a “mild” right hip strain, the Yankees decided it isn’t considered serious enough at this point to warrant a stint on the 10-day IL, Aaron Boone said before Saturday night’s 2-0 loss to the Rangers.

Boone’s slumbering offense, which produced three hits against Nathan Eovaldi in his complete game, very much could have used Judge’s bat.

The Yankees (15-13) have not scored more than three runs in 12 of their last 16 games, and in those 12 games, they have scored 22 runs and gone 3-9.

“We’re going to wait to see, today and tomorrow, and see how we’re doing to see if this is something we want to take [the 10 days] or if he’s ready to play by Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,” Boone said. “It’ll be something that we’ll just kind of pay attention to. Probably want to make that decision one way or the other by Monday because then we could backdate on the 10-day part of it. But right now, we’re just treating it day-to-day. He’s shown a lot of improvements in the last two days.”

Jhony Brito was saved early by two terrific defensive plays. In his first inning as a Yankee, Jake Bauers kept a run off the board with a sliding catch into the leftfield wall that caused a right knee contusion that forced him from the game. Aaron Hicks, who replaced Bauers, kept two runs off the board with a running catch in the gap in left-center to end the third. Hicks jumped and took the ball away from leaping centerfielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa as they came together.

Boone said Bauers likely will undergo testing on the knee and added, “All the manual tests look good, but he’s got swelling in there. So we’ll see what we’ve got.”

When asked about the play, Bauers — who walked with a pronounced limp through the clubhouse afterward — said: “Thought I had room to slide and obviously the wall was right there . . . Tough to deal with [getting hurt], but at the end of the day, everything happens for a reason. Don’t always know what that reason is, but just trying to keep my head up and see where we’re at tomorrow. It feels all right, I’m walking on it all right. It’s just swollen.”

Brito gave up a leadoff single to Robbie Grossman in the fifth, then allowed a 431-foot homer into the second deck in leftfield by Ezequiel Duran that made it 2-0. The way the Yankees have been hitting, it felt like 20-0.

Brito (2-3) allowed those two runs, four hits and a walk in five innings in which he struck out five. He said of the 1-and-0 changeup that wound up in the seats: “Good pitch. You’ve got to give him credit there. I guess he was looking for that pitch and he made the adjustment and he was able to execute.”

Eovaldi, a former Yankee (2015-16) who routinely throttled his former team while with the Red Sox from 2018-22, continued that trend Saturday. Eovaldi, who came in 2-2 with a 5.20 ERA, allowed the three hits — a correctly charged error on Willie Calhoun’s grounder dubiously was changed to a hit by the official scorer — and did not walk a batter. He struck out eight and retired the last 15 batters.

Said Boone: “Kind of classic Nate when he’s really on top of it. Kind of bullied us. We’ve seen him like that before. We’ve had a little bit of success from time to time, but he’s had a lot of really good performances against us, and I would put that one up there.”

Still, the day’s primary headline was about Judge, whose situation still is up in the air.

Judge, who told Boone he felt like hitting in the cages — an offer that was quickly rebuffed — received treatment Saturday but did not do any baseball activities and likely won’t do any on Sunday.

Why not err on the side of caution by just putting Judge on the IL? “Obviously, we don’t want to get into a situation where he hurts something further and put ourselves in jeopardy even further,” Boone said. “We’ll have to make that decision one way or the other, but right now we don’t feel like we have to make that decision.”

Boone did say he felt the MRI was a net positive in that it didn’t show anything significant. Several club insiders said Judge has been seen moving relatively well behind the scenes.

“I think you always go in nervous of what you’re going to hear and what you’re going to find,” Boone said. “In the grand scheme of things, big picture, we do feel like we got good news on it. But that said, we want to make sure we’re doing right by him and by us.”