Aaron Judge back on the injured list with a calf strain, and the Yankees have eight games left

The New York Yankees placed Aaron Judge on the 10-day injured list on Saturday with a right calf strain, retroactive to Thursday, less than two weeks after he returned from a fractured rib that had cost him most of the summer. Infielder and outfielder Max Schuemann was recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Judge told reporters in Phoenix that he still expects to play in the postseason, while making clear that nobody has given him a date. "I'd like to be back by the postseason," he said, according to MLB.com. "That's definitely the plan. It's the 10-day IL, so the 10th day is probably the last game of the season. So we'll see. I've got really no answers for you on any timeline or anything like that."

What the Yankees are actually playing for

Not much, in the standings. New York lost 5-3 at Arizona on Saturday to fall to 89-65, five games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League East, with eight games left. The Yankees have already clinched a postseason berth. The Rays, who beat Boston 2-1 on Saturday, have clinched the division.

The Red Sox are 84-71. CBS Sports reported that the Yankees also hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over Boston, which effectively locks them into the top wild-card spot and a home Wild Card Series.

The remaining schedule is a Sunday game in Arizona, then four games against the Rays in the Bronx on Sept. 22, 23 and 24, including a doubleheader, and three against Baltimore to close the regular season on Sept. 27. MLB.com has the AL Wild Card Series starting Sept. 29.

The timing question

Judge said the strain is in the soleus muscle, which he described as "a little more crucial with running and hitting," and that the training staff had not yet told him the grade of the injury. Manager Aaron Boone declined to give a severity or an estimate. "It doesn't matter what grade it is. We have nine games left," Boone said, per MLB.com. "We're going to get him back, or we're not."

The two outlets differ on the arithmetic of his eligibility. MLB.com wrote that the earliest he could be activated is Sept. 29. CBS Sports put it at next Sunday, the final day of the regular season, which is Sept. 27. Judge's own framing, that the 10th day lands around the last game of the year, matches the latter. Either way, a calf strain that resolves in exactly 10 days would be unusual, and reinjury risk is the reason clubs rarely rush them.

Why it matters beyond the box score

Judge, the reigning AL MVP, has played 66 games this season and is hitting .241 with a .360 on-base percentage, a .511 slugging percentage, 18 home runs and 41 RBIs, per MLB.com. He missed most of the summer with a rib fracture believed to date to April 26, came back on Sept. 8 without a minor-league rehab assignment, and went 4 for 23 with 13 strikeouts in seven games before the calf grabbed him in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

That is the real cost of this injury. The nine games Judge lost were not going to change the Yankees' seeding. They were the at-bats he needed to get his timing back after three months off. CBS Sports noted he missed on 41 percent of his swings against fastballs in those seven games, against a 19 percent league average.

Judge said he would keep throwing and working out. "I'm definitely frustrated, because the ultimate goal was, I was trying to come back to get a couple of games in before the postseason," he said, per MLB.com. "So it changes it a little bit, but the focus is still the same, to be ready to go for October."

Chronicle readers can follow the rest of the race on our MLB scores page and check the remaining games on the MLB schedule.

Sources: MLB.com, CBS Sports, and the MLB Stats API for standings, Saturday's results and the remaining schedule, all read on Sept. 19, 2026.