Aaron Judge was back in the New York Yankees lineup on Tuesday night, returning after more than three months away with a rib injury as the Yankees opened a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies. The game started at 7:05 p.m. ET, and the return instantly changed the shape of a late-season stretch run for a team still trying to separate itself in the race.
The Yankees entered at 81-62 and had won six of their last 10 games, outscoring opponents by 17 runs over that span. That is why Judge’s return mattered now: New York was getting one of its most important bats back while it still needed to keep pressure on the Rays and protect a slim edge in the American League Wild Card race.
For anyone searching Rockies Vs Yankees on Tuesday, the appeal was plain. This was the first meeting of the season between the clubs, with the Yankees at home and the Rockies arriving at 55-88. The game was carried locally on YES and Rockies.TV, and also on MLB.TV nationwide.
The form line leaned hard toward New York, but the matchup still carried a little friction. The Rockies had gone 3-7 over their last 10 games and came in on a four-game road losing streak, yet the Yankees were not walking into a simple tune-up. They were reintroducing Judge while trying to stay sharp in the middle of a playoff chase, and the length of his workload in his first game back was left unanswered.
That is the part that will matter after Tuesday night. Judge’s return gives the Yankees a deeper lineup for the final weeks of the regular season, but the real question is how quickly he can resume the kind of impact that helped define their season before the rib injury interrupted it more than three months ago.
