NEW YORK (AP)— Aaron Judge smiled after X-rays and a CT scan revealed negative results, causing the New York Yankees and their supporters to exhale.
Judge seemed to have evaded serious harm after being hit on the left hand by a 94.1 mph fastball from Baltimore’s Albert Suárez during a 4-2 win on Tuesday night.
“Feeling better after I got some good news,” Judge said upon returning to Yankee Stadium from New York-Presbyterian Hospital. “A huge relief. Just been hit there a few years ago and breaking my wrist, you never know what will happen. So finding out that it’s neither fractured or broken is a huge relief.”
Judge missed 45 games due to a broken right wrist sustained on July 26, 2018, after he was hit by a 93.4 mph pitch from Kansas City’s Jakob Junis.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone was on the phone with general manager Brian Cashman as he drove to Yankee Stadium after his son Brandon’s high school graduation.
“He’s like, ‘Oh, Judge just got hit’ and was kind of describing he’s grimacing and whatever, trying to describe where he got hit,” Boone recalled.
Judge took a few steps into fair area, gritting his teeth and flexing his hand, before proceeding to first base and being evaluated by Yankees chief athletic trainer Tim Lentych.
“I was trying to go up and in, up and in, and I guess it was too much,” Suárez stated. “I’ve done this before. He fouled it off, and when I tried to go in again, it hit him.”
Judge stated that he was outraged over being hit and was not making a move toward Suárez.
“You really don’t know where you are once you get hit like that,” the judge stated. “I kind of got twisted around there a little bit.”
Judge is batting.302 and leads the majors with 26 home runs and 64 RBI. The 32-year-old is a five-time All-Star and was named the 2022 AL MVP after hitting 62 home runs, breaking Roger Maris’ AL record of 61 set in 1961.
Another huge talent, Mookie Betts of the Los Angeles Dodgers, broke his left hand Sunday after being struck by a pitch from Dan Altavilla of the Kansas City Royals and is expected to miss six to eight weeks.
Yankees teammates took exception to Judge’s hit and mentioned after the game that Gleyber Torres was struck on the left hand by Keegan Akin’s 93.7 mph pitch in the fifth.
“I wouldn’t say I would expect anything to roll over, but I do expect that there’s going to be probably a little bit more edge, right?” Outfielder Alex Verdugo said. “Our captain got hit, so just kind of got to see how it goes.”
Verdugo looked to yell at Orioles first baseman Ryan Mountcastle from the bench, but later explained, “We’re boys, so I was kind of busting him up a little bit, just messing around with him.”
“None of us are too pleased about it but at the same time I don’t believe that it was intentional,” Verdugo stated. “It was just one of those situations that got away – a few of pitches slipped by their men. Just one of those things—you hit someone, you kind of need—maybe if you can’t go in, don’t go in that day, so it’s just one of those things. “We will see what happens.”
After scoring on Giancarlo Stanton’s single, Judge proceeded to the clubhouse. He played center field in the top of the fourth and was replaced by pinch-hitter Trent Grisham in the bottom half.
“Any time you get hit by 94, 95 up and in like that and especially in the hands where there’s so many small bones,” the judge stated, “you just never know what’s going to happen and what it’s going to be.”
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