Yankees Make Decision on Aaron Judge's Status for AL Wild Card Series

The 2026 MLB regular season is officially in the books for the New York Yankees, who will continue their odyssey with the MLB playoffs and the American League Wild Card Series against the Boston Red Sox. It’s only right that these two long-storied rivals will play each other in a best-of-three series to advance to the AL Division Series to play the No. 1 seed Tampa Bay Rays.

Last year, the Yankees defeated the Red Sox in two games in the wild-card round, so fans in the Bronx will hope for a similar result this time around. We already know who the Yankees will be starting in the series, but there was uncertainty around the health and status of superstar slugger Aaron Judge, who is on the 10-day injury list with a right calf strain.

On Tuesday morning, we finally received some clarity on Judge. According to Jack Curry of the YES Network, the superstar outfielder will not be on the team's wild-card roster.

Aaron Judge will NOT be on the Yankees’ wild card roster.
— JackCurryYES (@JackCurryYES) September 29, 2026

Last week, Judge told reporters that he intends to play in the wild-card round and start in right field, which was surprising, as manager Aaron Boone had a different view of the situation. The superstar slugger took live batting practice yesterday at Monday's workout, but did not run the bases or play in the field, per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com.

Aaron Judge will not be on the Yankees' Wild Card Series roster

While Judge likely wants to play and be out there with his teammates, the Yankees made the right call to not put their captain on the 26-man roster for the Wild Card Series against the Red Sox.

The fact that he didn't run the bases or play in the field at the team workout on Monday was a sign that he might not be ready to go. The Yankees can't afford to take the bat out of Ben Rice's hands, who has thrived in the DH role this season.

If Judge were healthy enough to play, he would be automatically slotted into right field for Game 1 tonight.

Judge hasn’t played in a game since Sept. 16 against the Minnesota Twins. It would've been malpractice for Boone to send him out there in a playoff environment.

In fact, before the veteran went on the injured list days after being pulled from that game a couple of weeks ago, the superstar outfielder wasn’t tearing the ball over the cover in his return from his injured right rib fracture.

Judge was slashing a mediocre .174/.208/.304 with a home run, three RBIs, a walk, and 13 strikeouts across that seven-game window. He also had a .513 OPS during that stretch, which isn’t typical for Judge, who has an OPS of .871 this season despite playing only 66 games (the third-fewest games of his career).

That being said, the Yankees will have to complete the tough task of winning a series without Judge, which will be easier said than done. However, if New York can advance to the ALDS, the hope is that he's ready to play.

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