Yankees captain Aaron Judge goes on injured list with flexor strain but no damage to UCL in elbow

NEW YORK (AP) — Yankees captain Aaron Judge, his teammates and New York's fan base exhaled Saturday when the two-time AL MVP learned he has a flexor strain in his right elbow but no acute damage to his ulnar collateral ligament that might cause a long-term layoff.

Judge was sent for an MRI on Saturday and missed just his second game this season, a 9-4 loss to Philadelphia. He had a platelet-rich plasma injection and was put on the injured list Sunday. He hopes to return to action in 10 days to two weeks, initially as a designated hitter.

“You never want to go in the tube. It’s never fun. You don’t know what’s going to show up,” Judge said after Saturday's game. “That’s why I kind of pushed off a lot of that imaging and stuff like that because if I don’t know what’s going on, it can’t hurt you, I guess.”

Judge leads the major leagues with a .342 batting average and 1.160 OPS. He has 37 home runs and 85 RBIs for a New York team that opened a seven-game AL East lead by late May but dropped a season-high 6 1/2 games back of first-place Toronto on Saturday.

“All in all, we got good news today,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I think all of us kind of feared the worst.”

Judge was put on the IL retroactive to Saturday and his roster spot was taken by Amed Rosario, an infielder and outfielder acquired from Washington on Saturday night for pitcher Clayton Beeter and minor league outfielder Browm Martínez.

Knowing how tough Judge is, Boone had been worried. Judge told Boone of throwing difficulty during Friday's 12-5 loss to Philadelphia.

“I couldn’t throw past 60 feet,” Judge said. “We’re going up against a Phillies team, they can hit the ball over the park. I just didn’t want to put our pitchers in jeopardy, just not be able to come up and make a play for them.”

Boone received results of the scan just before the start of Saturday's game, when team officials were getting some more evaluation. Because pain impacted his throwing but not hitting, Judge fought going on the IL.

“With that strain, then if you go out there and play with it you put the UCL in jeopardy, so we got to get that healed up,” Boone said.

Boone said it was too soon to determine whether highly regarded prospect Spencer Jones will be brought up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Judge likely won't throw for 10 to 14 days, then will need a few days throwing to build back arm strength before returning to the outfield.

“I really was reluctant about going on any IL or anything like that,” Judge said. “I was like, 'If I can hit, let me hit.’” he said. “I’ll start DHing, I think, once this 10th day is up.”

Giancarlo Stanton, the team’s primary DH, will start to work out in the outfield next week in order to help fill in for Judge.

“It's never a relief knowing he's going to be out at all, but for what it is, I guess you could say best case,” Stanton said.

Judge said he first felt the pain in the sixth inning of Tuesday's game at Toronto, when George Springer singled to right in the sixth inning off Jonathan Loáisiga. Judge made a strong throw home in an attempt to prevent the tying run, but Davis Schneider just beat catcher Austin Wells' tag.

An inning later, Judge winced after catching Alejandro Kirk's seventh-inning fly in the right-field corner and throwing to second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. as Bo Bichette tagged up and went from second to third. Judge was caught by a YES Network camera clenching his right hand in a fist.

“He’s about as tough as they come and for him to even show any vulnerability or pain or whatever,” Boone said. “I knew we had an issue probably. And so any time you can fear the worst with that, but that’s why you wait to react, though. ... We got the MRI and got a clear diagnosis with it.”

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB

New York Yankees' Aaron Judge (99) celebrates in the dugout after hitting a two-run home run against the Toronto Blue Jays in the sixth inning of a baseball game in Toronto on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. (Jon Blacker/The Canadian Press via AP)

New York Yankees' Aaron Judge (99) hits a two-run home run against the Toronto Blue Jays in the sixth inning of a baseball game in Toronto on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. (Jon Blacker/The Canadian Press via AP)

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — England's managing director of men's cricket Rob Key says he will investigate the drinking habits of the England team following reports that their mid-Ashes beach resort break may have involved over-indulging of alcohol.

England lost each of the first three tests to allow Australia to retain the Ashes in just 11 days of on-field action.

The England squad visited the resort town of Noosa on the Sunshine Coach north of Brisbane between the second and third tests, a long-planned part of the itinerary designed to help players relax and unwind on the long tour.

Key, who did not join the players in Noosa, said he had no problem with the break, but would not be happy if he found evidence of over-indulging.

“If there’s things where people are saying that our players went out and drank excessively, then of course we’ll be looking into that,” he said Tuesday in Melbourne, where the fourth test begins Friday.

“Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol for an international cricket team is not something that I’d expect to see at any stage and it would be a fault not to look into what happened there. From everything that I’ve heard so far, they actually were pretty well behaved. Very well behaved.”

He added: “We’ve got enough ways of finding out exactly what happened and everything that I’ve heard so far that they sat down, had lunch, had dinner, didn’t go out late, all of that, had the odd drink. I don’t mind that. If it goes past that, then that’s an issue as far as I’m concerned."

Key also said he had previously looked into reports that players had been spotted drinking the night before a match in New Zealand shortly before the Ashes.

A short clip of white-ball captain Harry Brook and Jacob Bethell was shared by a member of the public on social media, said to have been taken while they were out in Wellington before the third one-day international on Nov. 1.

“I didn’t feel like that was worthy of formal warnings, but it was probably worthy of informal ones,” he said.

“I think that was a bit of a wake-up call actually for what they’re going into. I don’t mind players having a glass of wine over dinner. Anything more than that, I think is ridiculous, really.”

AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket

Australian players celebrate the dismissal of England's Jamie Smith during play on the final day of the third Ashes cricket test between England and Australia in Adelaide, Australia, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/James Elsby)