As If Things Couldn't Be Going Any Worse For The Yankees, Aaron Judge Is Having Trouble Throwing a Baseball And Is Undergoing Imaging On His Elbow

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My life is in shambles. On Tuesday in Toronto Aaron Judge made a catch in right field and threw a ball back into the infield. Immediately after doing so he was found wincing. Certainly not something you want your franchise player to be doing. 

In classic Aaron Boone fashion he described it as a "one-off" thing. Judge DH'd the following night, but said the wincing had nothing to do with it. Boone called him "all right." The Yankees had a day off on Thursday before last night's game against the Phillies at the Stadium. Judge played right field all night, but was seen lobbing balls back to the infield. For some reason this was allowed to happen. A clear sign of an issue Tuesday night and he ends up playing Friday when he can't throw a baseball. No one saw this as a problem? 

This morning when the lineups were announced, Judge was nowhere to be seen which was extremely odd because 1) he plays every game 2) there was a lefty on the mound 3) they just had an off-day on Thursday. My panic alarms began to sound as I connected the dots. Then Boone revealed the worst, announcing that imaging was being done on the elbow and adding that he had trouble throwing the ball on Friday night. 

Devastation. If Judge needs Tommy John surgery —and at this point I expect he will— I won't have any will to live. Like what the fuck, man? These last few months were already such a disaster and now you're taking 99 from us? Sure Bryce Harper played through his torn UCL and DH'd for the remainder of the season when it happened to him, but eventually he had to get the surgery. Keep in mind also the Yankees have a logjam at the DH position so if he has to go there for the rest of the year then what the fuck does Giancarlo do? This is all so, so, so bad and things were already trending way down with the team. 

The timing is terrible also as we're just days from the trade deadline and hours before newly acquired Ryan McMahon makes his team debut. Do you even make that trade if the Judge stuff happens before yesterday? Oh that's right, it did they just ignored it! Now what do you do for the rest of the deadline? Do you sell some pieces a day after buying? My head hurts and I'm really sad. Please somehow have this MRI say good things. 

P.S. It'd be so Yankees to ignore a major issue with their star player only to have them play through it and make it 10000x worse. Reminder Clarke Schmidt was pitching through forearm tightness for weeks before needing TJ surgery. 

P.P.S. Congrats to Cal Raleigh on his MVP