NEW YORK — The Yankees are sinking, and the two hitters they would lean on to pull them out both took a hit of their own this week. One is stuck on the injured list. The other is sliding down the MVP ballot. Neither development helps a team in freefall.
Aaron Judge’s rib injury has now dragged on long enough to cost him a place among the league’s statistical leaders. Ben Rice, the breakout star who carried the offense early, has cooled enough to fall behind in the American League MVP race.
Individually, each is a footnote. Together, on the same day, they underline how much has gone wrong for New York in a matter of weeks.
The Yankees have lost their grip on first place and their best sources of offense at the same time.
The timing sharpens the sting. The Yankees entered Tuesday at 48-36, having lost five straight and sitting 1.5 games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East. Both pieces of news arrived as the lineup was mired in a historic slump, a reminder that the team’s stars are not immune to the rough stretch swallowing everyone around them.
Judge’s absence crosses a statistical line
Judge has not played since May 31, when he appeared in a win over the Athletics. By Tuesday, he had missed 26 straight games with a stress fracture in one of his right ribs, and the milestone attached to that absence was not a good one.
As Talkin’ Yanks noted, Judge no longer has enough plate appearances to qualify for MLB’s statistical leaderboards at this point in the season. Unless he returns soon and piles up enough additional trips to the plate, the Yankees captain will stay off the official league leaderboards in the traditional offensive categories.
That is a jarring turn for a hitter who typically sits atop those lists. The three-time AL MVP was in the middle of another strong season before the injury, slashing .248 with a .375 on-base percentage and a .533 slugging mark, with 17 home runs and 38 RBIs across 59 games.
The seven-time All-Star is targeting a return sometime in late July or mid-August, according to the Athlon Sports report. Until then, the leaderboard absence is one more symbol of how long he has been gone.
What Judge’s void has cost the Yankees
The numbers without him tell the story. In the 25 games Judge missed before Tuesday, the Yankees went 12-13, a stark drop for a team that spent much of the season atop the American League.
His absence has changed how opposing pitchers attack the lineup, and the offense has visibly suffered without its centerpiece. New York arrived at Yankee Stadium this week having been swept in four games at Fenway Park, the start of a skid that has coincided almost exactly with his time on the injured list.
The Yankees will keep monitoring his recovery closely, aware that no single move at the trade deadline would replace what a healthy Judge provides. For now, they are trying to stay afloat until he returns, an increasingly difficult task as the losses mount.
Rice slips in the MVP race
The other blow is less about health and more about timing. Rice, who looked like an MVP front-runner earlier in the year, has cooled at the worst possible moment, and the latest polling reflects it.
According to Jason Foster of MLB.com, Rice checked in fourth in the third AL MVP poll of 2026, with 57 total points and two first-place votes. Foster explained where Rice’s case stands even after the recent dip.
“4. Ben Rice, Yankees (57 total points; 2 first-place votes),” Foster wrote. “Though he’s cooled down in June, his 22 homers entering Monday were tied for third in the AL, while his .928 OPS was fifth-best.”
Rice’s full-season line remains strong: 22 home runs, 53 RBIs, 56 runs scored and a .916 OPS that ranks eighth in the majors. The problem is the trend. His OPS has fallen from 1.056 entering June to .632 for the month, a steep slide that has pulled him out of the top tier of contenders.
The competition has surged past him. Houston’s Yordan Alvarez leads the AL race and collected 21 first-place votes, carrying baseball’s best OPS at 1.031, a .308 average and 25 home runs. Bobby Witt Jr. drew six first-place votes and Nick Kurtz one, both climbing ahead of Rice in the poll.
The advanced metrics widen the gap. Ben Rice sits at 1.6 bWAR, outside the top 10 among AL players, while Witt is at 4.3, Kurtz at 3.8 and Alvarez at 3.6. Rice could climb back with a hot stretch, but he would need the leaders to stumble, and the award now looks like Alvarez’s to lose.
Two setbacks, one struggling lineup
Neither update is catastrophic on its own. Judge is still expected back this summer, and Rice remains one of the best hitters in the sport, MVP ladder aside. But the pairing captures the Yankees’ predicament at the start of July.
The team that once boasted the game’s most feared lineup is now without its captain on the leaderboards and watching its breakout slugger fade from the MVP conversation. Both stories are byproducts of the same slump that has dropped the Yankees out of first place and into a six-game losing streak.
The path forward runs through both players. The Yankees need Judge healthy and Rice hot to climb back in the AL East. On a day that delivered bad news on each, that path looked a little steeper, and the wait for better news grew a little longer.
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