Yankees star leaves game against Orioles, sent for MRI

NEW YORK – Yankees superstar Aaron Judge was nicked in his left hand by a pitch Tuesday night and avoided significant injury.

“A big relief,” Judge said after the Yankees’ 4-2 win against the Orioles, after X-rays and a CT scan came back negative.

Judge is dealing with some residual swelling, but he hopes to be in the lineup Wednesday night when Gerrit Cole makes his long-awaited 2024 debut in the Yankees’ rotation after ulnar nerve irritation.

After preliminary x-rays at Yankee Stadium, Judge was sent to New York-Presbyterian Hospital for further evaluation and examined by Yankees physician Dr. Christopher Ahmad.

Early in the third inning, Judge took a 95-mph 2-2 fastball off the side of his hand from Orioles right-handed starter Albert Suarez.

In obvious pain, Judge clutched his left hand with his right, wincing as he slowly made his way toward first base, idling for a while on the grass field between home plate and the mound.

The Yankees captain would eventually score on a single by Giancarlo Stanton during a two-run inning in which Ben Rice also scored his first big league hit, a sharp single to right in his second at bat.

Judge played center field in the top of the fourth inning, but was lifted in the bottom half of the inning for pinch-hitter Trent Grisham, with the Yanks leading 3-0.

“Anytime you’re getting bumped up and down 94-95 (mph), especially in the hands where there are so many little bones, you never know what’s going to happen,” Judge said. “Getting that good news is a good thing.”

Before pinch-hit, Judge was still hoping to continue playing.

“I wanted to hit,” said Judge, who singled in his first at-bat. “I was sitting in the cage and trying to swing, but it really didn’t work at that moment.”

Entering this series between the AL East-leading Yankees and the second-place Orioles, now 2.5 games behind the Yanks, Judge has been on a huge stretch since April 27, hitting .374 with 22 home runs and 51 RBI in 46 games.

After Gleyber Torres was hit with the right hand by a pitch from Keegan Akin in the fifth inning, Yankees starter Nestor Cortes ran into Orioles’ star Gunnar Henderson in the sixth inning, knocking him off the plate.

The Orioles’ next batter, Anthony Santander, had to avoid a pitch on his knees that got past catcher Austin Wells and was called a passed ball.

Giancarlo Stanton glared at Akin in the sixth after a high and tight pitch, adding to the tense atmosphere since Judge’s departure.

Judge, the MLB home run leader with 26, missed 45 team games in 2018 when he was hit by a pitch on July 26 that caused a chip fracture in his right wrist.

Last season, Judge missed 42 team games after suffering torn ligaments in his right big toe after hitting the outfield wall on June 3 at Dodger Stadium.

It’s already been a rough start to Tuesday for the Yankees, leaving Anthony Rizzo and pitchers Cody Poteet and Ian Hamilton on the injured list.

Rizzo, with a broken right forearm, will be out for eight weeks.

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Yankees star leaves game against Orioles, sent for MRI

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