After a season marked by injury struggles, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Tuesday that Aaron Judge does not to need surgery on his toe.
Speaking with the “Talkin’ Yanks” podcast, the skipper said that he doesn’t think surgery for Judge is something “that’s on the board” for this offseason.
When responding to a comment Judge made about possibly needing offseason surgery, Boone said he believes the outfielder “was answering a very vague, hypothetical question like ‘I don’t know I may need…’ no, but you can never rule anything out but, no.”
Judge missed 42 games with a torn ligament in his right big toe that he sustained while crashing through the right field fence at Dodger Stadium on June 3.
It was not all down to Judge’s absence, but the club suffered mightly during his extended time on the injured list with the offense floundering they posted a 22-23 record and fell far back in the AL Wild Card race.
The only thing holding back Judge from duplicating his monstrous MVP season a year ago, when he hit 62 home runs and knocked in 131 RBI while slashing .311/.425/.686 for a 1.111 OPS in 157 games (a career-high) has been the injuries.
The slugger, who also missed 10 games from late April to early May due to a hip strain, has just 22 home runs and 45 RBI but he has still produced an impressive slash line of .284/.416/.627 for a 1.043 OPS in 65 games.
And with just 43 games remaining in the season, Judge is in danger of posting his lowest game total for a full season since he became a full-time big leaguer if he misses seven or more games the rest of the way.