Suddenly, things are looking a lot better for Yankees
The Yankees' Aaron Judge looks on from the dugout before an MLB game against the Athletics at Yankee Stadium on Monday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Here comes the Judge!
As the Yankees returned to the Bronx on Monday to play the Oakland Lower-Than-Triple-A’s, Aaron Judge got in his final tuneups before he is activated from the injured list on Tuesday.
Judge took part in the Yankees’ pre-series hitters meeting. He met with the media and explained that his sore right hip hasn’t been sore for “about five or six days.” He took batting practice on the field and signed autographs for fans camped out behind home plate.
And then he sat and watched the Yankees improve to 4-6 in his absence with a 7-2 victory over the A’s.
“I don’t like sitting out,” Judge said. “I love rooting on my teammates, but I’d rather be rooting them on while I’m on the field with them.”
The Yankees left Florida on Sunday after losing two of three against the Rays, who are 29-7 after a win over Baltimore on Monday.
The A’s are 8-28 in a season in which they are not even trying to compete. They are focused on squeezing as much money as they can out of the state of Nevada before an expected move to Las Vegas in 2027.
The Yankees decided not to have Judge do a minor league rehab assignment. They probably figured facing the A’s and their 7.26 team ERA (up from 7.25 pregame because Oakland threw only eight innings) will take care of that.
Oswaldo Cabrera, Gleyber Torres, DJ LeMahieu and Aaron Hicks homered for the Yankees, who are 19-17. If the season ended today, it would be a ridiculously short season, but the baseball season is long. A team that starts 8-28 isn’t going to make the postseason. A team that starts 19-17 can.
Getting Judge back certainly will help. The Yankees have gotten a massive lift from Harrison Bader, who in his six games back from the IL is batting .381 with two home runs, seven RBIs and a 1.266 OPS.
On Monday, the Yankees had managed one single against former Yankees lefthander JP Sears when Bader led off the fifth with a triple to left-center. Cabrera gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead two batters later with a home run to left.
The A’s (the gritty A’s? Nah, they don’t even deserve to be called that) tied it at 2 in the sixth. But Torres hit a solo homer and LeMahieu added a two-run shot in the bottom half to make it 5-2.
Hicks, who could have been on the roster bubble with Judge returning, may have saved his job with his first homer of the season, a two-run shot to right in the seventh. Hicks turned the boos from his first two fruitless at-bats into cheers.
“You definitely want to get the first one out of the way, that’s for sure,” he said. “To do it at home feels good as well.”
It’s unlikely the Yankees would have released Hicks, not with two years and $20 million left on his deal after this season. But the homer probably earned him a few more weeks before any of us armchair general managers brings it up again.
The wake-up call was Bader’s triple. If “Bade Ruth” continues to show offensive prowess like this, and like last year’s postseason (five home runs in nine games), the Yankees might want to sign him to an extension before he becomes a free agent after the season.
Bader is a Gold Glove centerfielder and looks like an improving impact hitter. Also, it’s not as if the Yankees have a ton of premium outfielders to play with Judge, and Jasson “The Martian” Dominguez is batting .169 in Double-A. So he needs some more prep work.
The Yankees have two irreplaceable players. One is Gerrit Cole, even though he shockingly blew a 6-0 lead against the Rays on Sunday in an 8-7, 10-inning loss.
The other wears No. 99 and will be back on Tuesday.
The Yankees showed they can dispatch Oakland without Judge. But the Rays come in for a four-game series starting Thursday. That’ll be all-hands- on-deck time.
“I’m ready to go,” Judge said. “Glad it’s over with and ready to get back to this team.”
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
