Yankees' Aaron Judge Calls Out Aaron Boone's Injury Comments

It came as a shock to fans when New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone gave a bleak update on Aaron Judge's elbow injury, telling the press, "I don't think we're going to see him back to throwing like he normally does at any point this year."

Apparently, it came as a shock to Judge as well.

According to a post from New York Daily News reporter Gary Phillips, Judge was not privy to this idea that he won't be back to normal this season, and Boone may not be as aware of the situation as he claimed to be.

"I don't know why he said that," Judge said, per Phillips. "He hasn't seen me throw for the past two weeks, so I'm pretty confident I'll get back to [100%]."

Aaron Judge just now on Aaron Boone's "normally" comment:

"I don't know why he said that. He hasn't seen me throw for the past two weeks, so I'm pretty confident I'll get back to [100%]." #Yankees https://t.co/834CBXS26B
— Gary Phillips (@GaryHPhillips) August 19, 2025

Judge's injury has plagued him for nearly a month now, and from the outset there was speculation that the minor injury might become a bigger deal than just a 10-day IL stint. Boone's initial hope that Judge would be right as rain in no time was overshadowed by Jeff Passan, author of The Arm (a 2017 title about arm injuries in the MLB), pointing out that injuries like Judge's (a right flexor strain) quite often graduate to UCL tears. A UCL tear would more than likely require Tommy John surgery, which would be disastrous for Judge and the Yankees.

Following the now-questionable news that Judge will not be healthy again for the rest of the season, Yankees commentator Ryan Garcia pointed out a similar situation from 2019. In retrospect, the language used by Boone when describing Judge's injury is similar to the language he used to describe Aaron Hicks' season-ending injury back then.

This was Aaron Hicks in 2019, the possibility of surgery was ruled out then he got surgery less than 3 months after https://t.co/JwUcSw8PCx pic.twitter.com/q41TE6WG4n
— Ryan Garcia (@RyanGarciaESM) August 19, 2025

Judge has completed throwing practices up to 150 feet, but there have been no updates (other than this ambiguous update) as to when he might return to the outfield. Since his injury, Judge has been the team's designated hitter, which has resulted in lineup configuration issues for the Yankees. Giancarlo Stanton headed to the outfield initially to fill in for Judge, and after a brief rest period with a nebulous lower-body injury of his own, Stanton will return to the outfield for this first game with the Tampa Bay Rays.

Let's hope the Yankees can get their story straight behind the scenes soon.

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