Still weeks away from even getting more imaging on his rib, Aaron Judge has had plenty of time to watch the Yankees from the dugout over the past month.
In the past week in particular, which Judge kindly described as “not great,” the captain was more pointed in his diagnosis of what has gone wrong during a losing streak that hit seven games on Wednesday afternoon.
“Just a little lack of focus,” Judge said Wednesday morning before a 6-2 loss to the Tigers while speaking to reporters for the first time since the day he went on the injured list. “Just got to dial it in. Our ultimate goal is to win a World Series. I think guys just got to remember that every single day they show up here. We’re here to win a World Series. That’s your motivation every single day you step on that field, no matter what happens. No matter what happened the day before, I got a job to do.
“We have an important sign when you walk out on that field, it’s the last sign you see before you go out there. It says, ‘Do your job.’ Guys just got to do their job.”
Aside from his responsibilities as captain, it remains a major question as to when Judge will be able to do his job again.
The back-to-back AL MVP declined to share even how he was feeling, deferring until he gets re-imaging on his right rib, which still appears to be weeks away from happening — and that is just to potentially clear him to start ramping up.
“I’ll give you a good update when we get some imaging, and we’ll go from there,” Judge said. “There’s no need to talk about this now. I know it’s an important topic and a big issue, but I want to give you guys the full story, so why give you guys something now when we can get you everything here soon?”
The Yankees need him back badly, though their problems go beyond just his absence. They have scored just 17 runs on 31 hits while committing 10 errors that have led to a total of 17 unearned runs.
By just about every facet of the game, the Yankees have been bad.
A few days before the brutal stretch began, there was also Jazz Chisholm Jr. sucking on a Blow Pop while playing second base for an inning in Detroit, then Chisholm getting thrown out of Sunday’s game after arguing and spiking his helmet over a check-swing call he did not agree with.
Judge indicated he has addressed the lack of focus “with a couple guys, but we’ll be talking here as a bigger group soon.” He declined to get specific when asked about how he was seeing it play out.
“I think you guys see it,” he said. “There’s a couple things. But we don’t need to get into that.”
Aaron Boone acknowledged again that it has been a “terrible week,” but did not seem to agree that a lack of focus has been the root of the problems.
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“I think when we’re right, we’re a quality team in those areas where we’ve made some errors this week and let some unearned runs go,” Boone said. “I think moving forward, that should be the case. There’s a little bit of a product of us having some important guys [out] around Judgey that settle us especially defensively and some of the little things, so guys are moving around a little bit, so I think that’s factored in.
“But no, individually speaking, I feel like guys are in the right frame of mind.”
Judge said that being sidelined during this stretch in particular has been “the worst” because he can’t be going through it with his teammates on the field.
“I hate missing games, but I hate missing it in times where things aren’t going your way,” he said. “That’s when I want to be out there. I want to be grinding with the guys and be part of the solution to get us back where we need to
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
