Aaron Judge cleared for light activity, confident of return this season

NEW YORK -- New York Yankees star Aaron Judge, who has not played in a game since May 31 because of a stress fracture in a right rib, was cleared for "light activity" after he had his fractured rib re-imaged Tuesday and remains confident he will return to play this season.

"Oh, I'll be back this season," Judge said Wednesday. "I don't know why I wouldn't be. That was always the plan to come back -- sooner than later, definitely -- but I never had a thought of not playing this year."

The light activity includes running and upper-body resistance exercises but nothing baseball related. Judge said he probably would need to undergo another scan before being cleared to hit and throw.

"I think that's going to be the ultimate test, is hitting," Judge said. "That's the most violent of it all, more than running or lifting and stuff like that. So, yeah, definitely keep progressing. Everything's feeling great, take another scan, see where it's at. Hopefully adding hitting, throwing, all that down the road."

Judge declined to share whether he has a target return date in mind, or whether he has one at all. The three-time American League MVP sustained the injury diving for a ball on April 26 -- his 34th birthday -- and played through pain for over a month until it became unbearable. After multiple tests, he was put on the 10-day injured list on June 5. He was transferred to the 60-day injured list on July 18.

"I think he understands what's at stake and obviously his role with this club and wanting to get back out there, but he's got to be whole too," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "I think he certainly wants to push the envelope as much as he possibly can but also understands that healing needs to happen with this."

Without him in the lineup, the Yankees' offense has been one of the worst in the majors, ranking 30th in wRC+, 27th in OPS, and 26th in runs scored since June 1. The struggles -- with Giancarlo Stanton (calf) and Cody Bellinger (hamstring) also on the injured list -- pushed general manager Brian Cashman to acquire first baseman Luis Garcia Jr.from the Washington Nationals and Heliot Ramos from the San Francisco Giants before Monday's trade deadline.

"We got the hitters we wanted," Judge said when asked about the front office's moves. "I think that's the biggest thing. That's what we found with the position we're in. We're trying to chase down theRaysand win this division. That's the most important thing."

Boone acknowledged that Judge would essentially need more than the length of spring training to ramp up whenever he is cleared for baseball activities because he'll have been sidelined for so long. With less than two months left in the regular season, and the Yankees four games behind the Rays entering Wednesday, Judge knows time is running low.

"It's healing up so that's progress you want to see so we can start doing some more testing and see where we're at because we're running out of days," Judge said. "We got 52 days left, 53 days left, so got to get back out there."br/]