There are still 11 weeks left in the regular season, but although it seems that there is time, the New York Yankees are in a complicated moment after it was confirmed that Aaron Judge will have to spend at least 10 days on the injured list due to problems in his right elbow. The Bronx Bombers are not at their best moment of the season and have lost significant ground, sitting in second place in their division, just one game ahead of their eternal rivals, the Boston Red Sox.
The main problem facing the Yankees right now, who have lost twelve of their last twenty games, including their last three games, is that they will have to survive an offensive stretch without the best hitter in all of Major League Baseball, who, unfortunately, has been surrounded by a lot of offensive inconsistency, generally speaking, during 2025. Despite having started in an “explosive” manner with the presentation of the “bat-torpedo”, the offensive power has been turned off.
Aaron Judge’s absence leaves Yankees in deep offensive trouble
In the next week and a half, the Yankees will lose the MLB leader in bWAR (6.7), hits (129), slugging (.711), OPS (1.160), OPS+ (218), as well as the American League leader in runs scored (90), RBIs (85), batting average (.342), walks (85), on-base percentage (.449) and total bases (268). All of these statistics are in the arms of one player, who unfortunately for New York fans will not be in attendance for 10 days.
If we take Judge’s offensive contribution out of the Yankees’ lineup, the offensive averages plummet. The team’s overall batting average without Judge is .239 in 3,165 official at-bats. The on-base percentage (OBP) is .320 and the slugging (SLG) is .386, which translates to an OPS of .706. The team’s collective OPS+ is 97. These numbers are important because when compared to the MLB average, they are all below average, with the exception of OBP (.320 vs. .316).
New York Yankees’ game collapses without Aaron Judge
Other elements to consider in Judge’s absence are home run productivity. The Yankees have hit 131 without the team captain’s homers, 13 more than the current MLB average of 118. In terms of RBIs without Judge, the team is again below the league average, with 430 compared to 441, and the organization’s total bases are 1,342 without the outfielder, below the league average of 1,414.
The team must be relieved that Judge dodged a major injury and that everything points to him being able to return relatively quickly. However, while he is not in the lineup, the team has more questions than answers and is more vulnerable than ever at the worst possible time of the season.
Read the full article here
