NEW YORK — The Yankees’ season ended with Aaron Judge sidelined.

After determining he wasn’t ready to return from a late-season calf strain for the ALDS, the Yankees knew they would have to advance at least one more round without the three-time American League MVP to give him another chance to return in these playoffs.

That didn’t happen, as the Yankees suffered a three-game sweep to the Tampa Bay Rays — due in large part to a Judge-less offense that totaled just five runs, 12 hits and a collective .130 batting average in the series.

“It definitely hurts. You want to be out there,” Judge said after Wednesday night’s season-ending 4-3 loss in the Bronx.

“You do all the rehab, all the work, come here early, stay late any time you’re banged up to try to get out there as soon as you can. It definitely hurts not getting a chance to be out there and battle.”

Judge, 34, had worked diligently since suffering the strain in his right calf on Sept. 16, but manager Aaron Boone ultimately decided to leave the superstar slugger off of the ALDS roster, reasoning that another week of rehab would better prepare Judge to approach his MVP-level form.

Boone expressed no regret over that decision after Wednesday’s defeat, saying, “I feel it was the right thing.”

“Look, it’s Aaron Judge, the greatest player in the world, and that’s a huge person to be missing,” Boone said. “But every team tends to deal with different attrition that they’ve got to face every year, and unfortunately that was, for us, much of this year.”

There’s no guarantee Judge would have been activated for the ALCS had the Yankees advanced. Before Wednesday’s game, general manager Brian Cashman told a few reporters that “it was pretty impossible” for Judge to be available for this week’s series against the Rays.

“I know what he would like to do, but that’s the warrior in him,” Cashman said, according to Fox Sports. “Physically he just couldn’t. It wasn’t a choice.”

After winning AL MVP in 2024 and 2025, Judge appeared in only 66 games this season, with a fractured rib costing him more than three months.

Judge returned from the rib injury on Sept. 8 and attempted to ramp up at the MLB level, forgoing a rehab assignment in an effort to help the division-chasing Yankees as soon as possible.

But Judge played just seven games before returning to the injured list with the calf strain — an injury Boone would later describe as having a “moderate” grade. Typically, a moderate strain carries a recovery time of three to six weeks, according to the Boston Sports Medicine & Research Institute.

The Yankees’ season ended exactly three weeks after Judge suffered the injury.

“I’m feeling great,” Judge said. “That’s why we were pushing forward, we had meetings, talking back and forth. It just didn’t happen.”

Judge finished with a .241 average, 18 home runs, 41 RBIs and an .870 OPS, numbers below his typical Herculean standard that were likely compromised by the right fielder playing through injury.

But after another early playoff exit, it’s impossible not to wonder what might have happened had Judge — who hit .500 (13 for 26) last postseason — been available.

“If I was on the roster or not, the boys that we had in this room, the guys who were out there fighting, I had all the faith in them,” Judge said, pointing to a wild-card series sweep of the Boston Red Sox in which the Yankees averaged 9.0 runs per game.

“But definitely, you can ask anybody in this room, I wanted to be out there and I wanted to contribute. It’s just not the way it went.”

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