Yankees' Aaron Judge Had 'Breakthrough' With Toe Injury After Injection

New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters on Tuesday that slugger Aaron Judge is starting to see good results in his recovery from a sprained right toe after having his latest platelet-rich plasma injection.

"I'm encouraged by what I'm seeing, just my conversations with him," he said. "And I feel like he feels like there's a little bit of breakthrough with that one. So he's slowly been doing better and able to do more things. But hopefully that was the start of him starting to make real progress."

Judge, 31, hasn't played since June 3. The Yankees (39-33) have gone just 4-8 in his absence and have dropped to 10.5 games back of the red-hot Tampa Bay Rays (51-24). They were just 4-6 when he missed time earlier in the year with a right hip strain.

Losing the defending AL MVP was always going to be a tough injury to deal with for the Yankees. Judge was having another excellent season, hitting .291 with 19 homers, 40 RBI, 42 runs and a 1.078 OPS in just 49 games.

Still, it's been a disappointing stretch for the team during his absences this season.

"He's the captain. He's our leader. But one guy doesn't make the biggest difference in the world," Anthony Rizzo told reporters on Sunday. "We have to come together and rally for us, for him and for everyone. But I know the narrative is without Judge, this and that, but I don't think that's fair to put on him or anyone on this team."

Boone echoed that sentiment:

"That team that we're rolling out there (is) capable of doing damage offensively. ... You take the best player in the world out. That, to me, is just an excuse right now. We've got plenty of guys capable of putting up big runs, and I know that's going to be the story every day until we start banging away. But we've got more than capable people to get it done. We've got to get a little more consistent right now."

As for Judge's timetable to return, that has remained up in the air, with general manager Brian Cashman telling reporters he has "no clue yet" when Judge might return and describing his ailment as a "unique injury."

"Ultimately, the most important thing we need to do is make sure that he's healed when we start to deploy him," he added. "We don't want this thing coming back on us at any point because it wasn't 100 percent ready to go."