Despite his best efforts, New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge will not be available for his team’s American League Wildcard Series against the Boston Red Sox.
Judge, who had been lobbying to be included as he continues to rehab from a calf injury, will instead be replaced by Giancarlo Stanton who is coming off a 5 month layoff due to injury himself. The Yankees captain was limited to just 66 games this season due to injury. He was in his 7th game back from a lengthy layoff when he strained his right calf on September 16th, effectively ending his regular season.
New York figures to deploy Cody Bellinger, Heliot Ramos, and Spencer Jones in the outfield when they kick off their series with Boston, though Trent Grisham could figure into the series as well depending on how far along he is in his recovery from a hamstring strain. Ben Rice is likely to handle DH duties, while Stanton would be available off the bench to pinch hit.
The 34 year old received a plasma injection last week in an effort to help speed up his recovery process, but the Yankees brass clearly felt that the best course of action was to hold off activating their star player until the ALDS at the earliest.
Meanwhile, Stanton has appeared in just 24 games this season. He slashed .256/.302/.422 with three homers across 96 plate appearances, but figures to give the team a right handed option amidst their lefty heavy lineup. With LHP Payton Tolle and Ranger Suarez scheduled for games 1 and 3 respectively, Stanton’s inclusion could simply be a case of the team playing the numbers in their roster construction.
Should New York win the series and move on, Game 1 of the ALDS is scheduled for Saturday at Tropicana Field before an off day on Sunday and Game 2 Monday. Theoretically, they could roster Judge and then postpone his first appearance until Monday, giving him another week to recover.
Game 1 of the Wilcard series kicks off Tuesday night at 8pm ET.
Photo: Jeffrey Hyde. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.