The New York Yankees‘ 2023 season was doomed by a fluke Aaron Judge injury at Dodger Stadium.
So with the Yankees about to make their first regular-season trip back to Chavez Ravine since Judge’s freak toe injury, Yankees fans are understandably anxious about the superstar playing the outfield there.
But Yankees manager Aaron Boone is evidently not superstitious, because he intends to send Judge to right field to play his customary position this weekend when New York takes on the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“He’s gonna play right field,” Boone said on when asked about him playing a different position this weekend on the “Talkin’ Yanks” podcast.
Judge did play the outfield in the World Series last year at Dodger Stadium but started all five games in center field. This weekend will be his first time playing right field in LA since 2023.
Barring an injury, Judge is well on his way to another MVP season — which would be his third in New York’s past four seasons and second in a row. Judge is slashing .395/.488/.746 with 18 home runs and 47 RBIs, each of which ranks second in the American League.
Why Would Aaron Judge Change Positions At Dodger Stadium?
If you’re not a Yankees fan, or blocked Judge’s catastrophic toe injury from your memory, the outfielder moving out of his customary position for one series may seem strange.
But the Yankees were 10 games over .500 when they walked into Dodger Stadium two Junes ago and took two of three from Los Angeles. But in the series’ middle game, Judge stubbed his toe on a concrete slab of the outfield wall while playing right field, which tore ligaments in his toe and cost him nearly two months.
The Yankees went 19-22 while their superstar nursed his ailing toe, and they finished the season 82-80 and in fourth place in the AL East, missing the playoffs.
Dodger Stadium added padding to the spot where Judge injured his toe — it had been unpadded until 2023. Boone would like to think the Yankees season could stay on the rails without Judge, even though they are already without ace starting pitcher Gerrit Cole and power-hitting DH Giancarlo Stanton.
But Judge has been baseball’s best hitter, flirting with .400 through two months and hitting for power and driving in runs.
“Obviously he’s been pretty amazing,” Boone said. “He’s just been really steady so far and getting a ton of hits obviously.”
Still, Boone has seen stretches like this from his superstar before.
“The first stretch I went back and looked at was last May and June,” Boone said, “and last May and June dwarfs March, April, May of this year.”
To Boone’s point, after a dreadful first month of the 2024 season, Judge hit .404/.511/.934 with 26 home runs and 65 RBIs in 225 plate appearances between May 3-July 2 a year ago.
Buoyed by his unconscious two-months stretch, Judge finished third in batting average in the AL (.322) and led the majors in both home runs (58) and RBIs (144) and helped the Yankees reach the World Series for the first time since 2009.
Is The Yankees Playing The Dodgers A Big Deal?
The last time the Yankees played at Dodger Stadium they had fallen behind 2-0 in the 2024 World Series.
So Boone understands the raised intrigue by New York heading west to play a midseason series at Chavez Ravine — aside from the fact he grew up in Southern California
“The couple times we’ve gone to LA in the regular season, those are fun series,” Boone said. “There’ll be a lot of hype around it. It’s always fun in the regular season to be in those environments and have those experiences, I think it’s good for our guys. It should be a lot of fun.”
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