Brian Cashman was ‘caught off guard’ by sudden Aaron Judge crusher that has murky timeline

Aaron Judge called the stress fracture in his first right rib the “worst” diagnosis he could have received, and he won’t be able to do any baseball activities as the bone heals, at least until he gets the injury re-imaged in four to six weeks.

“Very disappointed,” Judge said Friday after being placed on the 10-day injured list with a similar injury to the one he suffered in 2019 that wasn’t diagnosed until the following spring.

Neither Judge nor the Yankees would dare make a guess at Judge’s potential return, other than to say they expect him to be back at some point later in the season.

For now, he’s out indefinitely and since bones generally take six to eight weeks to heal and Judge was playing as recently as last weekend, it’ll be a while.