NEW YORK — The Yankees captain laced his cleats, pulled the pinstripes over his shoulders and jogged out to the Yankee Stadium grass on Wednesday afternoon. For the first time since spring, it looked less like a holding pattern and more like a countdown.
Aaron Judge, when he stepped to a microphone before the Cardinals series finale, delivered something the Yankees had been waiting nearly two months to hear.
The message carried more weight than any home run trot. A team clinging to a playoff berth without its centerpiece needed a reason to believe. Judge gave it one, in the blunt cadence that has defined his public comments since the injury.
A third scan finally moved the needle for the Yankees
Then came Tuesday. Judge underwent another round of imaging, his latest since going down, and the results changed the plan. Manager Aaron Boone confirmed Wednesday that the club had cleared its captain for light activity: outdoor running and upper-body resistance work. No hitting. No throwing. But after weeks of stillness, it was the first forward step anyone could point to.
The upper-body clearance is the piece that matters most. The rib injury left Judge unable to load his upper body at all without stressing the break. Clearing that hurdle signals the bone is knitting. Boone framed the next phase as symptom-based, with baseball work waiting on the far side of it.
Boone spoke after reporters watched Judge running and stretching on the Yankees’ field before first pitch. For a Yankees club that had gone weeks without a concrete update, the workout alone qualified as news.
“It’s an important part of his progression to get back with us,” Boone said. “It’s good to see him with his pinstripes on and cleats, heading out onto the field in the afternoon, certainly.”
The Yankees manager laid out where the rehab goes next, stressing that Judge’s own tolerance, not a fixed date, will set the pace.
“It’s more symptom-based now as he starts to introduce things,” Boone said. “So the running outside is new, and some of the upper-body resistance stuff he’ll be able to do. Then as he tolerates that, we’ll start moving into baseball activities at some point.”
Boone put the moment in plain terms, casting it as the start of real momentum after a long stall.
“We’re at that portion of the show now where he gets to start progressing,” Boone said.
Judge doesn’t hide his impatience to return
The Yankees star made clear he did not wait around once the medical staff gave him room to move. Asked about the scan, he described talking his way outdoors the instant the door cracked open.
“I just got the scan [Tuesday] and the minute they said we’re going to start running, I said, ‘All right, I’ll see you outside,'” Judge said. “I kind of forced them on that one. Hopefully whenever we get a game plan, you guys will be somewhere on the list and we’ll let you guys know.”
He offered no target date, and made a joke of just how far down the priority list the media sits when one arrives.
“I’ve got nothing for you on that,” Judge said. “Whenever we get a game plan, you guys will be somewhere on the list and I’ll let you guys know. Not the top!”
What he does have, he said, is a sharpening sense that the calendar is shrinking and a flat refusal to write off the season.
“I’ve got a broken rib, so you’re going to feel it,” Judge said. “But it’s healing up. That’s the progress we want to see. So we can start doing some more, kind of testing and see where we’re at. You’re running out of days. We’ve got 52 days left, 53 days left. We’ve got to get back out there.”
Pressed on whether he still expects to play in 2026, the Yankees captain did not hedge.
“Oh, I’ll be back this season,” Judge said. “I don’t know why I wouldn’t be. That was always the plan, to come back sooner than later, definitely. I never had a thought of not playing this year.”
The swing looms as the real test
The clearance to run and lift is a milestone, but Judge knows it is not the hurdle that decides his season, or the Yankees’ season. Swinging a bat puts the most force through the rib cage. He expects a fuller MRI sometime this month, and if that scan shows the rib fully healed, he will be cleared to hit.
“I think that’s going to be the ultimate test,” Judge said. “That’s the most violent of it all, more than running or lifting and stuff like that.”
For now, the Yankees slugger framed his outlook as one of steady progress rather than a fixed finish line.
“So, yeah, keep progressing. Everything’s feeling great,” Judge said. “Take another scan, see where it’s at. Hopefully adding hitting, throwing, all that down the road.”
Boone made clear the Yankees will not let their captain rush the final steps, even knowing how badly he wants back in the Yankees’ batting order.
“I think he understands what’s at stake and his importance to this club and wanting to get back out there, but he’s got to be whole, too,” Boone said. “I think he certainly wants to push the envelope as much as he possibly can, but also understands that healing needs to happen with this.”
The manager said the training staff will build the timeline backward from a target once Judge is cleared to hit and throw, and expressed confidence the runway is long enough.
“Because he’s got to introduce things physically, the trainers will map out on the calendar kind of working backwards where you get to that point,” Boone said. “We should have time to do that.”
What the layoff has cost the Yankees lineup
He has not played since May 31, sidelined by a stress fracture in the first rib on the right side of his body. He traces the break to a diving attempt in the outfield on April 26 in Houston, an injury he tried to play through for a month before his production dipped. He landed on the injured list June 2 and was later transferred to the 60-day IL. Even in absence, he earned an eighth All-Star selection, a marker of what he had done before the rib gave way.
Before the rib pulled him from the field, Judge was hitting .248 with 17 home runs, 38 RBIs, 43 runs and a .907 OPS in 59 games.
Without him, the Yankees offense has lost both its power and its consistency. The Yankees have leaned on their pitching staff to stay in the race while the lineup searched for length.
What is the timeline for Judge’s return
A return in September now looks like the likeliest window. His layoff from baseball activity is closing in on three months, longer than any spring training. Even after the Yankees captain is cleared to hit, he will need time to rebuild timing and game shape, so medical clearance will not mean an immediate line into the batting order.
The stakes sharpen every week.
For now the Yankees have a runner, not a hitter, and a promise instead of a date. Judge is outside again, moving again, counting down the days he has left to make the second half his. The next test is a bat in his hands. Until then, the pinstripes wait on the same answer he keeps repeating: he is coming back.
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