Judge on the 10-Day IL, With a Window to Return

Aaron Judge was moved to the 10-day IL on September 30th, a designation that at least keeps a playoff return on the table after his earlier stint on the 60-day. That is the sliver of good news. The rest of it is familiar: he has played 40 games this season, posted a 1.021 OPS, and the offense has been a different animal without him.

How different? New York is scoring 4.3 runs per game over their last 10 contests, down from 5.8 in the 20 games before that. A run and a half per game is not a slump — it is a structural problem, and it maps almost exactly onto Judge's unavailability. Ben Rice, Cody Bellinger, and the rest of the lineup have held together as well as they reasonably could, but none of them changes a pitcher's approach the way Judge does just by standing in the on-deck circle.

The 10-day designation means the door is not closed. Whether he actually walks through it in time for the ALDS is the question New York has been living with for weeks now. I noted after the division series was set that his absence had become the defining fact of this October. That has not changed. What has changed is that there is at least a formal mechanism for him to come back, which is more than the 60-day offered.

Six games left in the regular season. The Yankees are 4-6 in their last 10 and being outscored. If Judge can get back on the field before the calendar flips to playoff baseball, this team looks different. If he cannot, the lineup that has been scoring 4.3 runs a night is the one heading into the division series.