The Yankees waited three and a half months for Aaron Judge to come back. They got him for eleven days.

The Aaron Judge calf strain will send the Yankees captain to the 10-day injured list Saturday, according to Reuters. The move can be backdated to Thursday, which makes him eligible to return for the regular-season finale on Sept. 27. Manager Aaron Boone refused to say whether that will actually happen. Asked if Judge could be ready for the postseason, Boone said he had no timeline and would not predict anything.

That is about as bad as it gets with eight days left in the regular season.

Judge pulled himself out of Wednesday's game in Minnesota in the sixth inning after his right calf tightened. He first felt it in the opening inning and tried to play through it. Judge said he attempted to stay in the game because the games matter so much down the stretch, but decided to come out so he would not cost the team on the field or on the basepaths. An MRI on Thursday showed the strain.

The timing is brutal. Judge had only just returned on Sept. 7 after missing more than three months with a stress fracture in his right rib. The Yankees put him on the shelf June 2, and their captain did not play again until this month. In seven games back he went 4-for-23 with one home run and three RBIs, and he never quite looked like himself. His line for the season sits at .241 with 18 homers and 41 RBIs across 66 games. The Aaron Judge calf strain now threatens to wipe out the whole comeback.

March was kinder to him. Judge spent the spring playing for a star-powered Team USA at the World Baseball Classic, which fell to Venezuela in the final. That was the last time he played meaningful baseball at full strength.

What Boone said, and what he would not

Boone was blunt about how little the team knows, according to USA Today's Bob Nightengale. Boone said the Yankees are in the early stages, that they will treat the injury and see what happens, and that he hopes Judge can become an option at some point.

The Aaron Judge calf strain is a tricky injury for any player, and it is worse for a 34-year-old whose power starts in his lower body. SNY's John Jastremski put the Yankees' panic level at 9 out of 10 on Friday night, pointing out that the plan was to use these final weeks to get Judge's timing right against October pitching. That plan is gone now.

The rotation has been held together by duct tape all season too, which is why New York was hunting for a frontline arm like Tarik Skubal at the trade deadline. Every part of this roster has been tested.

The clubhouse response

Cody Bellinger, one of the Yankees' steadiest hitters all year, did not sugarcoat it. Losing "Judgey" hurts, Bellinger said Friday, calling him "the best hitter in the game." The clubhouse mindset, he added, is to find a way, because the talent in the room speaks for itself.

They have done it before, at least in the regular season. New York is 48-39 without Judge this year, and the Yankees have already locked up a postseason spot. Ben Rice, who homered in Friday's 9-2 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks, described the mood as frustrated, not panicked. Rice said missing Judge for so long and then losing him again after such a brief return is hard to swallow, but the team has no choice but to keep playing hard.

That win showed the lineup can still score in bunches. The Yankees hung five runs on Arizona in the first inning, Gerrit Cole gave them six solid innings, and the team moved to 89-64.

New York sits four games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East, and the two teams open a four-game series at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday. The Yankees will play that series without their captain, without Jazz Chisholm Jr. (thumb), and likely without Trent Grisham (hamstring), though Boone said Chisholm could be back in time for the Rays.

What comes next

Saturday, the Yankees send out Cam Schlittler (14-6, 1.95 ERA), the American League Cy Young favorite, against Arizona's Brandon Pfaadt (7-3, 3.77). Max Schuemann was recalled from Triple-A to take Judge's roster spot.

The bigger question is October. The Yankees survived three months without Judge once. Doing it again in the postseason, when every at-bat gets magnified, is a different test. Judge is a three-time AL MVP, and his presence changes how opposing pitchers attack the entire lineup. Without him, New York needs Bellinger, Rice, and the rest of the order to keep producing the way they did Friday night.

Judge has appeared in just 66 games this season. For a player who has carried the Yankees' October hopes year after year, watching the playoffs from the training room would be the cruelest ending to an already lost season. The Yankees say he could be back for the finale. Boone's own words suggest nobody should count on it.