Judge sits again with pain in neck

Aaron Judge was out of the lineup for the second straight day with a neck issue. The Yankee slugger was scratched from Saturday night’s intrasquad game and Sunday he was at the Stadium to receive treatment on his neck.

Aaron Boone said because it’s just spring training 2.0 there is no reason to push the issue.

“He’s in getting treatment now,” Boone said. “Getting a little more work. He is still a little stiff and just something that obviously we don’t want to push at this point.

“I feel like he’s been able to get a lot of work in and a lot of at bats to this point. So I just thought it was better than to not not push it today, but he is doing a little bit better today but still pretty stiff in there.”

Boone indicated he did not think this was “a big deal,” on Saturday night and said Sunday that he expects Judge to be available for Tuesday night’s intrasquad scrimmage.

Judge missed all of spring training 1.0 with a shoulder issue, which after about a dozen exams and doctor consultations, turned out to be a broken rib he had suffered in September. Judge had been hitting and working on his own in Tampa before the report date in February, but he was shut down with shoulder pain before camp began.

The Yankees said they expected Judge’s injury, because it is in a tricky location and would take a while to heal. He was diagnosed with the stress fracture in his rib the first week in March and it was only a little while ago that he had been cleared to begin swinging a bat.

Judge spent the quarantine in Tampa, rehabbing and working out at the Yankees’ spring training facility.

He was vague about when he began hitting, but as of May 22, hitting coach Marcus Thames said he was not yet swinging.

“It’s been a couple of weeks, a month or so, I’ve been able to swing,” Judge said last week. “We we’re getting our work done in Tampa, I’ve been going into the facility and getting in the cages, getting on the field every once in a while so it feels good to be back on the field.

“I kept inching, trying to push them on the regimen a little bit on what we could do because my body was feeling great and I know we had a limited time to get ready for the season because we never knew when it was going to start, so yeah it’s been about a couple weeks, month. I’m not too sure to be honest. The days kind of blend together in quarantine.”

In his three previous big-league seasons, the 27-year-old has never had two healthy or strong halves.

After hitting .329 with 30 homers in 84 games in the first half of 2017, Judge went to the All-Star Game and won the Home Run Derby, then immediately began to struggle. He was 1-for-21 in his first five games following the AllStar break and in his first 55 hit .185 with 11 homers and 84 strikeouts over 189 at-bats from July 14 to Sept. 12.

It was not until the next spring he admitted a shoulder injury that required offseason surgery had affected him.

Of course in 2018, Judge lost most of the second half of the season to a broken wrist. After hitting 25 homers and driving in 60 runs in the first 93 games of the season, he played in only 19 in the second half. He hit two homers and drove in seven runs during that period.

In 2019, Judge missed 54 games after straining his oblique in April.

TANAKA UPDATE

Masahiro Tanaka continued his progression Sunday. The Yankees right-hander suffered what the team called a mild concussion after taking a line drive to the side of his head on July 4.

“Masa he threw again today. I know he’s throwing out to 100 feet. He’s doing well. I think he ramped up his cardio even a little bit more today,” Boone said. “And if everything goes well there, which it did, if he comes in tomorrow, I think it’ll be a little more strenuous.” Boone said there is still not a planned date for him to throw off a mound.