Judge held out of Bombers’ scrimmage with stiff neck
Aaron Judge was a late scratch from the Yankees’ lineup for Saturday night’s intrasquad game at the Stadium. Judge held out with a stiff neck, and was replaced in right field by Tyler Wade. He was recovering from a fractured rib before the conronavirus shutown and would not have been ready for Opening Day had it gone on as scheduled in late March.
Boone said that Judge “slept on [his neck] a little weird, and that he hopes the he can return to intrasquad matchups by Sunday.
“Obviously didn’t want to force anything today, so hopefully he can be in there tomorrow,” said Boone, who added that the team will wait for the soreness to subside. “I don’t expect it to be a long term thing.”
Judge remains on pace to be in the Yankee lineup when they face the Nationals in Washington on the new Opening Day, July 23.
TANAKA’S RAINY CATCH
One week after Masahiro Tanaka was concussed by a comebacker, the Yankee right-hander weathered the rain to stay sharp for the season.
Tanaka despite being caught in between rain showers lingering from Tropical Storm Fay, which reached New York on Friday.
Giancarlo Stanton smoked one of Tanaka’s pitches during a July batter-vs-pitcher drill straight to the mound, buckling
Tanaka on impact. The team sent him to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a concussion, immediately triggering his placement on the team’s sevenday concussion list.
Boone said Tanaka was still under the protocol, but that he’s been able to play catch “a couple of times” and has handled the team’s battery of tests well, which include raising his heart rate with an elliptical machine to track his response.
“Anytime we’re talking about a concussion, we’re making sure we’re moving slowly and smartly,” said Boone. The Yankee manager doesn’t have a firm date for Tanaka to resume activities, but said: “He is at least responding how we hoped.”
As the forecast predicted, the scattered thunderstorms raged during the early part of the afternoon, forcing Tanaka and other
Yankees in and out of the dugout trying to make the most of their limited time before the restart.
Tanaka was drilled in the dome by Stanton, not only a premier power hitter, but a 6-foot-6 slugger that smoked one pitch over 120.6mph — tops in all of baseball. (He’s notched the hardest hit ball of every season since Statcast began recording in 2015.)
So what’s a little rain? Tanaka’s seen worse.
PLAYING GAMES TO STAY SAFE
Aaron Hicks is confident that PlayStation can keep his team on the straight and narrow so they don’t stray too far from their homes and MLB’s COVID-19 protocols.
“All our team does is play video games,” said Hicks, the team’s full-time center fielder since 2017. “I’m not too worried about my team and you know, going out and getting wild, cuz they like their video games.”
There’s good reason to think the Yankees are gaming enough to ensure they have the best possible chance at playing in real life.
Back in March, The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler reported on the team’s highly involved and ultracompetitive Madden NFL league. Yankees fireballer Tommy Kahnle, the commissioner of their gaming battles, was also a competitor in MLB The Show Player’s League, battling other baseball stars around the league with their polygonal avatars from a safe distance over the PlayStation Network.
Could Netflix help the cause too? Hicks said he’ll be “bingewatching” heavily when he’s not at the ballpark. “It’s kind of what I would assume… that’s definitely what I’m going to be doing. So I just start from there.”