Yankees still waiting on 'concrete' Aaron Judge diagnosis

Gary Phillips, New York Daily News on Jun 4, 2026

Published in Baseball

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NEW YORK — For the second straight day, Aaron Boone began his pregame press conference by apologizing for not having any substantial updates on Aaron Judge.

“I got nothing for you yet,” the manager said before the Yankees’ series finale against the Guardians on Thursday. “Sorry.”

However, Boone did say that Judge, only diagnosed with an upper right rib bone bruise thus far, underwent a CT scan and an X-ray on Thursday morning. Judge, whose injury has impacted his shoulder and swing, also had another MRI on Wednesday night after meeting with a specialist.

Boone added that Judge’s injury has resulted in edema, or swelling, which made the MRI imaging harder to read and created the need for the additional tests in the rib/chest area. Boone hoped to have those results “in the next couple hours, or even immediately” at the time of his presser.

“Trust me, I want to know, I think even more than you,” Boone said. “But it’s complicated, the spot, and there’s some edema that complicates how they look at it. I’m obviously not a doctor — I don’t know how it all works — but there’s a lot of people involved in trying to make sure we get the right diagnosis.”

On Wednesday night, Boone was asked if the need for extra imaging indicated added concern, generally speaking, or worry over a potential fracture.

“I don’t want to speak out of turn,” Boone replied. “I don’t know that yet. Obviously, it’s to a point to where he’s not playing, so we just want to make sure that we get a really strong diagnosis of things. Hopefully, then we can roll.”

Judge, out of the lineup for the third straight day on Thursday, had experienced some nagging discomfort for the past few weeks before his injury worsened in Sacramento over the weekend. The slugger, who had been slumping prior to his absence, underwent initial imaging on Monday, which revealed the bone bruise, and met with team physician Dr. Chris Ahmad on Tuesday before seeing the specialist on Wednesday.

As Boone awaited Judge’s latest test results on Thursday, the manager did say that the back-to-back MVP has felt “a little bit better” since beginning treatment and taking medicine. Judge has been able to work out in the weight room as well.

So far, the Yankees haven’t put their captain on the injured list. Of course, a stint on the shelf hasn’t been ruled out with the team stuck in a game of wait-and-see, but Boone’s hope is that that can still be avoided if the ultimate diagnosis is just a bone bruise, which could potentially require less rest than a minimum 10-day IL stint would mandate.

“That’s at least possible and still in play,” Boone said, “but until we have a concrete diagnosis and know what it is exactly, I don’t know.”