‘What are we doing?’: Aaron Judge’s first year as Yankees captain ends without October
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Coley Harvey, ESPN Staff Writer
NEW YORK — Aaron Judge was quiet.
When asked what he learned about his team during a difficult first year as captain, the five-time All-Star took a full 16 seconds before responding. From his locker at the far end of the New York Yankees clubhouse, Judge stood, his eyes scanning the room as his mind scanned everything that happened this year.
“Honestly,” the 31-year-old outfielder said, “this really tested everybody’s character. It tested my character.”
For the first time since Judge made his MLB debut in 2016, the Yankees’ bad days outweighed the good. On Sunday, whatever still-existing playoff dreams the team might have had were officially dashed when a loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks eliminated New York from postseason contention. And throughout the Yankees’ final homestand, which ends Monday, Judge and his teammates admitted this has been a year they hope to never repeat.
“You kind of get tested at a time when things aren’t going your way, when guys get hurt, you’re not getting the call that you want, the ball’s not falling the way that you want it to,” Judge told ESPN. “It challenges you to continue to show up every day and compete. This just really tested guys. You’ve really got to want to be here. You’ve really got to want it and bring it every single day.”
The Yankees’ 2023 season ends Sunday in Kansas City. Instead of a postseason, as October begins, the Yankees will be taking vacations, going on fishing trips, spending time with loved ones, reconditioning their bodies and resetting their minds. They certainly won’t be playing for a World Series.
“When you come to New York, you’ve got to win. It’s about winning a World Series,” Judge said. “If you don’t win a World Series, it’s like: ‘What are we doing?'”
After getting as far as the American League Championship Series in three of the past six seasons, the Yankees will be at home in October for the first time since 2016.
Although there is a belief throughout the club that this season will ultimately be a minor blip, that doesn’t change the reality of what could’ve been.
“You take it very personally,” said manager Aaron Boone, whose job security after his fifth season in charge remains a question entering the offseason. “We have to own it, and I have to own it. We are the leaders of this team, and you’ve got to take the good with the bad.
“We pour a lot into this, 365 days a year, to be a championship-caliber team, and when we fall short of that … that’s tough.”
Nobody knows that better than second baseman Gleyber Torres, who was called up in 2018. For the first time in his career, he won’t be playing any meaningful games in October.
“How we play right now is just like, we don’t want that,” Torres said. “We want to play like how we were last year — just consistency every day.”
At this point, it isn’t surprising that this is the way New York’s season is ending. Injuries and offensive inconsistency have plagued the organization since early June, making this the year’s long-anticipated destination.
Ahead of Opening Day, though, there were vastly different expectations. On paper, the Yankees were an elite squad thought to be a serious AL contender. Coming out of spring training, ESPN’s panel of experts ranked them as MLB’s fourth-best team, with an 88% chance of making the playoffs and the highest World Series odds of any team.
For Judge, all that makes it even more frustrating that this happened on his watch — and while he was on the sideline for much of the season, missing 51 games with a toe injury.
“Not being out there for the guys every single day, and not helping them give us an opportunity to get to the postseason, that kills me,” Judge said. “Me getting hurt, I felt like I impacted the team and impacted their chances.
“That eats at me every night.”
The Yankees could be inclined to trace the start of their season’s demise back to June 3, when Judge crashed into the right-field wall at Dodger Stadium while chasing a deep fly ball. As his 6-foot-7, 280-pound frame ripped through the gated, chain-link portion of the fence, his right foot struck a concrete siding that runs along the very bottom of the outfield wall.
The full-speed impact resulted in a torn ligament in his right big toe, sending Judge to the injured list.
During that stretch, the Yankees also lost a number of other players to injuries and inconsistent performance. The 2022 All-Star battery of catcher Jose Trevino and pitcher Nestor Cortes went down with season-ending injuries. First baseman Anthony Rizzo suffered post-concussion symptoms from an incident in May and missed significant time, as did starting pitchers Luis Severino and Carlos Rodon, designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton and other once-key Yankees — including Josh Donaldson and Harrison Bader — who aren’t even on the team anymore.
Though Judge’s lengthy absence from injury won’t be remembered as the only factor that led to New York’s downfall this season, to him, none of that matters.
“It just goes back to: You only get so many years to get a chance to play here in New York,” Judge said. “I just signed a long-term deal, so I’m going to be here for a couple more years, but there are guys we don’t re-sign or they’re going to be a free agent, and this could be the one chance to make a postseason or make an impact in New York. And I kind of take responsibility for that.
“Not giving them a chance to see what it’s like in a postseason in October in New York hurts. Them missing out on an opportunity like that, I take full responsibility for that. That’s on me. I’m the one going out there every single day. I’ve got to go out and show up and put our team in the best position.”
Boone was not surprised that his star player was laying so much of the fault of the season’s failures at his own feet.
“He’ll have games periodically during the season where he’ll have this great game and then not get a big hit in a big spot and he’ll be: ‘It’s on me. It’s on me,'” Boone said. “He just expects a lot.”
Despite seeing a dip in his batting average (from .291 to .268) since returning from the toe injury July 28, Judge has nonetheless been a welcome presence in the Yankees’ lineup down the stretch. With two series to go, he has 35 home runs, good for fourth in the AL.
Last week he became the first Yankee with multiple three-home run games in a single season. Both came after his IL return, helping assuage concerns about his recovery and reigniting hope for next season.
Judge will be back, obviously, as will ace Gerrit Cole, who capped what is expected to be a Cy Young Award-winning season by tossing an eight-inning two-hitter Thursday night — a performance in which he took a perfect game into the sixth.
“It’s disappointing that we’ve had the season that we’ve had, that’s for sure,” Cole said. “But regardless of if you’re in it or you’re not, as a professional, you’ve got to do your job. Sometimes you have to find different ways to get energy, or to focus in games that are maybe obviously a little less intense than they are if you’re competing for the division … [but] people are buying tickets, you’re getting paid a salary and honestly, it is still fun.”
Judge takes solace in the team’s rebound after the last time it missed the playoffs. The 2016 squad went 84-78, and, with a run for the division crown seemingly out of reach by that August, the club called up Judge and other young prospects. They finished fourth in the division — and then made six straight postseason appearances.
The message that Judge — the only current Yankee to have played in games for that 2016 team — received from veterans like Brett Gardner, CC Sabathia, Brian McCann, Mark Teixeira and Carlos Beltran at the time was to keep doing the work. Keep improving.
“That was probably the most powerful lesson: Just because you made it up here doesn’t mean that the journey is over, that the work’s over, that the grind’s over,” Judge said. “Getting up here and seeing guys like Mark Teixeira, in spring training seeing Alex Rodriguez and Beltran. They’re future Hall of Famers, and they’re still working on their craft. Even at age 38, 39, 40.
“You’ve got to make adjustments. You can’t be satisfied. It’s just an eye-opening thing for a lot of guys that hey, the journey’s not done. Don’t be satisfied just because you get the call-up.”
It’s the same message that he, Cole and the few other veterans in this current clubhouse have passed on to the sizable group of young Yankees, like rookie shortstop Anthony Volpe and outfielder Jasson Dominguez, who made their debuts or got significant late-season call-up time this year.
“Throughout the whole year it’s been a wake-up call. And as much as we’ve stuck to our routines, there are things that we need to do differently to be better next year,” 28-year-old pitcher Michael King said. “It’s not a fun position to be in. We don’t like being here, and I’m hoping that all of us don’t like being here, and we’ll make that transition.”
That attitude is what gives Judge confidence in the team’s improvement next year. He credits the team’s ALCS appearance in 2017 in part because of how badly the squad wanted to erase the disappointing ending the year before. The 2024 group will need to follow suit.
“I didn’t like the taste of having everybody in the clubhouse, and when the last game was over, that was it,” Judge said. “Just having that taste and seeing the disappointment and seeing the veterans talk about it. I said, ‘I don’t want to experience this. I want to be playing the last game of the year all the way to the end.’
“So that’s one lesson we can take out of this. We’ve got a lot of improvements, and a lot of things we’ve got to work on and fix for the upcoming years. And the time for that starts now.”
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Adam Rittenberg
Cincinnati freshman football player Jeremiah Kelly, an early enrollee who went through spring practice with the team, died unexpectedly Tuesday morning at his residence.
The school didn’t disclose a cause of death.
Kelly, an 18-year-old offensive lineman from Avon, Ohio, helped his high school team to a 16-0 record and a state championship last fall.
“The Bearcats football family is heartbroken by the sudden loss of this outstanding young man,” Cincinnati coach Scott Satterfield said in a statement. “In the short time Jeremiah has spent with our team, he has made a real impact, both on the field and in our locker room. My prayers are with the Kelly family and those who had the pleasure of knowing Jeremiah.”
Cincinnati completed its spring practice session last week.
“We’ve suffered a heartbreaking loss today,” Cincinnati athletic director John Cunningham said in a statement. “All of us at UC send our love and prayers to the Kelly family and we will do everything that we can to support them and our Bearcats student-athletes in the difficult days and weeks ahead.”
Seven of eight first-round series in the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs have begun, and No. 8 gets rolling on Tuesday.
The Battle of Florida between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers begins anew (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN), with both clubs looking like a legitimate Stanley Cup contender if they can survive the intrastate showdown.
Cats-Bolts is the third game of four Tuesday on the ESPN family of networks, following New Jersey–Carolina (6 p.m. ET, ESPN) and Ottawa–Toronto (7:30 p.m., ESPN2), and preceding the nightcap, Minnesota–Vegas (11 p.m. ET, ESPN).
What are the key storylines heading into Tuesday’s games? Who are the key players to watch?
Read on for game previews with statistical insights from ESPN Research, recaps of what went down Monday night, and the Three Stars of Monday Night from Arda Öcal.
Matchup notes
New Jersey Devils at Carolina Hurricanes
Game 2 (CAR leads 1-0) | 6 p.m. ET | ESPN
Game 1 sure did not go as planned for the Devils. A win at the legendarily loud Lenovo Center would’ve been stretching it, but losing Brenden Dillon, Cody Glass and Luke Hughes to injury was not an ideal outcome either.
They’ll hope to rebound Tuesday before the series shifts to Newark. Closing the shot attempt differential might help, as the famously possession-savvy Hurricanes held a 45-24 edge on shots on goal in Game 1.
For years, the knock on Carolina was that it lacked that one goal scorer who could get the Canes over the hump in the playoffs. Many observers thought the Canes had acquired such a player in Mikko Rantanen in January. Ironically, it was the player Carolina acquired in its subsequent trade of Rantanen to Dallas — Logan Stankoven — who scored two goals in Game 1. Will he add to that total in Game 2?
Of note heading into Tuesday’s game, the Devils have come back to win a playoff series after losing the first game 11 out of 26 times (42%); that figure drops to 20% if they fall behind 0-2. The Hurricanes have won six of their past seven series after winning Game 1.
Ottawa Senators at Toronto Maple Leafs
Game 2 (TOR leads 1-0) | 7:30 p.m. ET | ESPN2
The atmosphere was intense for Game 1, and the Maple Leafs’ “Core Four” led the way: Mitch Marner (one goal, two assists), William Nylander (one goal, one assist), John Tavares (one goal, one assist) and Auston Matthews (two assists) each filled up the scoresheet. A continuation of that output will obviously help Toronto overwhelm its provincial neighbor.
Slowing down the Maple Leafs could depend on discipline, according to Ottawa captain Brady Tkachuk. “We took too many penalties, they scored on [them] and that’s the game,” Tkachuk told reporters after Game 1. “So that’s on us. We’ve got to be more disciplined.”
The Sens will also need to capitalize on their chances. According to Stathletes, Ottawa had five high-danger scoring chances in this game, and produced only two goals.
Florida Panthers at Tampa Bay Lightning
Game 1 | 8:30 p.m ET | ESPN
This is the fourth time that the two Sunshine State franchises have met in the postseason, and all four of the meetings have occurred since 2021.
In each instance, the winner of the series has gone on to reach the Stanley Cup Final — Lightning in 2021 and 2022; Panthers in 2024 — while the 2021 Lightning and 2024 Panthers won it all.
Unsurprisingly, Nikita Kucherov is Tampa Bay’s leading scorer against Florida, with 25 points (five goals, 20 assists) in 15 games. Aleksander Barkov is the Panthers’ leading scorer against the Lightning, with 13 points (three goals, 10 assists) in 15 games.
The two teams split their meetings in the regular season, with the Lightning winning the most recent, 5-1 on April 15.
Minnesota Wild at Vegas Golden Knights
Game 2 (VGK leads 1-0) | 11 p.m. ET | ESPN
The underdog Wild set a physical tone to the series in Game 1, outhitting the Golden Knights 54-29, but the hosts emerged with a 4-2 victory. Tomas Hertl, Pavel Dorofeyev and Brett Howden (two) were the goal scorers for Vegas, and Matt Boldy was responsible for both Minnesota goals.
Howden, who had never scored double-digit goals until his 23 this season, earned praise from coach Bruce Cassidy after Game 1. “He didn’t change his game,” Cassidy told reporters. “He played physical. He’s part of our penalty kill. He’s always out when the goalie’s out, typically one of the six guys we use a lot because of his versatility. He can play wing. He can take draws as a center. He’s been real good for us all year and good again tonight.”
Sunday’s game was the NHL debut for 2024 first-round pick Zeev Buium, who just finished his season with the University of Denver. He played 13 minutes, 37 seconds and finished with one shot on goal.
Arda’s Three Stars of Monday
The greatest goal scorer in NHL history just keeps finding the back of the net. He had two goals, including the overtime winner, as the Caps take Game 1 3-2 despite a valiant third period effort from Montreal to send it to the extra frame.
Connor had the game-winning goal in the third period for the second straight game, as Winnipeg takes both games at home for the 2-0 series lead on the Blues.
Further proof that the Oilers are never out of the game, McDavid helped erase a 4-0 deficit with a goal and three assists, despite the Oilers falling 6-5 late in a thrilling Game 1.
Monday’s scores
Capitals 3, Canadiens 2 (OT)
Washington leads 1-0
Much of the regular season was spent focused on Alex Ovechkin‘s “Gr8 Chase” of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal-scoring record, and he scored historic goal No. 895 on Sunday, April 6. It turns out, Ovi likes the spotlight. The Capitals superstar opened the scoring in the game, and bookended it with the overtime winner — his first ever, believe it or not — as the Caps survived a thriller in Game 1, following Nick Suzuki‘s tying goal with 4:15 remaining. Full recap.
1:51
Alex Ovechkin’s OT goal wins Game 1 for Capitals
Alex Ovechkin’s second goal of the game is an overtime winner that gives the Capitals a 1-0 series lead vs. the Canadiens.
Jets 2, Blues 1
Winnipeg leads 2-0
Game 1 between the two clubs was tightly contested until the Jets took over in the third period. That trend took hold again on Monday — the score remained tied into 1-1 the third period, when Winnipeg’s Kyle Connor scored at the 1:43 mark, and the Jets were able to hold the Blues off the scoreboard for the duration. Connor’s linemate Mark Scheifele assisted on the game-winner and opened the scoring, giving him a league-leading five points this postseason. Full recap.
0:40
Kyle Connor scores clutch goal to put Jets ahead in 3rd period
Kyle Connor extends Winnipeg’s lead after a clutch goal early in the 3rd period vs. St. Louis.
Stars 4, Avalanche 3 (OT)
Series tied 1-1
The series that every observer thought would be the closest in the first round didn’t look that way in Game 1, as the Avs ran over the Stars en route to a 5-1 win. Game 2 was much more in line with expectations, as the two Western powerhouses needed OT to settle things. Colin Blackwell was the hero for Dallas, scoring with 2:14 remaining in the first OT period. Full recap.
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Colin Blackwell comes up with big OT winner for Stars
Colin Blackwell sends the Stars faithful into jubilation with a great overtime winner to tie the series at 1-1 vs. the Avalanche.
Kings 6, Oilers 5
Los Angeles leads 1-0
Monday’s nightcap was a delight to those who like offensive hockey and were willing to stay up late. The Kings roared out to a four-goal lead late in the second period before Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl scored to pull within three with six seconds remaining. The two teams traded goals to start the third, before the Oilers notched three in a row to tie up the festivities with 1:28 remaining on Connor McDavid‘s first of the 2025 playoffs. L.A.’s Phillip Danault sent his club’s fans home happy, scoring the pivotal goal with 42 seconds left. Full recap.
0:46
Kings retake lead on Phillip Danault’s goal in final minute
Phillip Danault restores the lead for the Kings with a goal vs. the Oilers in the closing moments.
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