Aaron Judge takes major step toward Yankees return

TORONTO — As the clock ticks down on the regular season, Aaron Judge took another step toward trying to beat it.

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The Yankees slugger played catch Friday for the first time in his comeback from a right rib stress fracture, a small but significant benchmark that represented the start of baseball activities with six weeks left in the regular season.

Aaron Boone, who gives smidges of injury updates on his captain like they are highly protected state secrets, said he did not know what was next for Judge, or even if he would be throwing again on Saturday. But it was at least a start, nine days after reimaging of the rib showed enough healing to clear him for outdoor running and upper-body work in the weight room.

“Hopefully continue to progress through this week and we’ll see what else gets introduced,” Boone said Saturday afternoon at Rogers Centre. “I talked to him [Friday] and it was a good day.”

Swinging a bat would seem to be the biggest potential hurdle for Judge, given the injury he is dealing with, though it remains unclear when he might introduce that.

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Boone said Judge did not have to get reimaged to allow him to start playing catch, and while there is still more healing to go, there was “nothing on the schedule for now” in terms of another round of reimaging.

“He hasn’t done any baseball things for a while,” Boone said. “There’s a lot more to do still.”

Judge, who has not played a game or swung a bat since the end of May, has insisted all along that he will be back at some point this season.

But after Saturday, there are just 39 games left in the regular season, as the runway continues to get smaller with still plenty of hurdles left to clear for the back-to-back AL MVP.

“We expect him back,” Boone said. “But we’re in the early stages of baseball activities. Hopefully things continue to go well.”

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