WASHINGTON D.C. — The pitch caught Ben Rice flush on the right leg. He doubled over at the plate in the fifth inning Friday night, shaken, and for a moment the Yankees dugout held its breath.
Rice stayed in. An inning later he was rounding the bases on his 29th home run of the season, the leg apparently no worse for the blow. The scare passed as quickly as it came.
For a team that has spent six weeks defined by who it is missing, a shaken-off foul ball qualified as good news. But the Yankees’ injury ledger did not stop there this week, and the two names below Rice on it carry far heavier weight.
One is the reigning face of the franchise. The other is a rotation arm whose return now comes with a warning attached.
A second injury complicates Judge’s return
Aaron Judge has not played since May 31, and the reason he remains out is no longer as simple as the Yankees first described. The stress fracture in his right rib has been the headline, but it is not the whole diagnosis.
Judge is also dealing with an intercostal strain, an overstretch or tear of the muscles between the ribs. The two injuries are commonly linked, both stemming from the repetitive twisting a hitter’s torso absorbs. Together they explain the caution the Yankees have shown.
The timeline reflects that caution. Judge is in the sixth week of what began as a four-to-six-week shutdown, and he still cannot perform any upper-body work that stresses his rib cage. General manager Brian Cashman said Judge will be reimaged during the All-Star break, and that the Yankees are not expecting the pictures to come back clean.
Cashman framed the hope narrowly, looking for progress rather than resolution.
“I think we’re anticipating and hopeful that it’s showing the healing process,” Cashman said.
He also declined to attach a return date, deferring entirely to the medical staff and to a body that is still tightly limited.
“I haven’t even bothered to ask that question,” Cashman said.
Internally, the Yankees are hoping Judge returns by late August or early September, and even that assumes a clean scan followed by a multi-week ramp-up. There is no version of this in which he is back soon.
The warning inside Rodon’s recovery
The third name on the list is the one that should give the Yankees pause about October. Carlos Rodon landed back on the injured list with inflammation in his surgically repaired left elbow, and while the early signs are encouraging, a specialist made clear the risk does not simply vanish.
Dr. Julia Iafrate, a sports medicine physician at NYU Langone, reviewed Rodon’s case for a New York Post injury segment. She confirmed the most important finding first: an MRI showed the ulnar collateral ligament is intact. The inflammation, she said, likely sits in the tissue around the ligament rather than in the ligament itself.
Iafrate pointed to the flexor pronator origin, a tendon on the inside of the elbow central to the throwing motion, and to shifting mechanics over time as the more probable culprits than the offseason surgery.
What encouraged her was the pace. Rodon was already playing catch less than a week after landing on the injured list, a sign she read as reassuring.
“To me, that’s reassuring,” Iafrate said of the quick return to throwing.
Then came the caution. Asked directly whether the inflammation could resurface late in a postseason run, Iafrate did not dismiss it.
“It’s definitely possible,” Iafrate said.
She explained that the rehab team must stay disciplined about Rodon’s biomechanics, and that platelet-rich plasma injections are meant to force the tissue to strengthen over time. The hope is that a recurrence is unlikely, but the possibility is real enough to name.
What it means for a thin Yankees roster
The injuries land on a team already stretched. The Yankees are 52-42, four games behind Tampa Bay in the AL East, and have gone 15-19 since Judge went down. They still hold the top American League wild-card spot by four games, a cushion that has masked how thin the roster has become.
Judge’s absence is the largest hole, but it is not the only one. Slugger Giancarlo Stanton remains out with a right calf strain, leaving the lineup without two of its biggest bats at once. Rice, the one who walked off Friday’s scare unharmed, has been carrying the offense nearly alone.
Rodon’s status shapes the other half of the roster. He made nine starts before the elbow shut him down, and the rotation’s depth has been tested further by other absences. A healthy Rodon in October would be a weapon. A Rodon whose elbow flares in October would be a problem the Yankees cannot fully rule out.
The reimaging of Judge next week will set the Yankees’ tone. A scan showing real healing would let him begin adding activity and keep the late-summer timeline alive. A discouraging one would push everything back.
For a club clinging to a wild-card lead while chasing the Rays, the health of all three will shape what the second half looks like. The Yankees continue their series in Washington on Saturday, then scatter for the break, waiting on the scan that matters most.
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