Aaron Judge swollen but X-rays, CT scan negative on his hand after being hit by pitch

Aaron Judge left Tuesday night’s game in the fourth inning, shortly after being hit in the hand by a pitch, and following the game he was sent for imaging and a visit with team physician Dr. Christopher Ahmad – with manager Aaron Boone only saying “we’ll see what we’ve got, and hopefully, we avoid something.”

Well, later in the night, though, the Yankees got some good news, as it looks like they did indeed avoid something: X-rays and a CT scan on Judge's hand came back clean, with no fractures, and it looks like the team avoided the worst.

"It's a big relief," Judge told MLB.com. "Just, being hit there before a couple of years ago and breaking my wrist, you never know what's going to happen. So finding out that it's not fractured, not broken, is definitely a sigh of relief."

Judge missed 45 games with a broken right wrist after he was hit by then-Royal Jakob Junis in July 2018, and after taking an Albert Suarez fastball (and initially remaining in the game for an inning), there was concern of a repeat.

"Anytime you get hit by 94, 95 up and in like that, especially in the hand, where there's so many small bones and ligaments, you just never know what's going to happen or what it's going to be," Judge said. "I was definitely pissed. There were a couple of balls up and in.
But that's part of it. They like to throw in."

Both Judge and Gleyber Torres were hit in the middle innings of the game, which led to a now-viral clip of Alex Verdugo in the dugout telling someone he was going to ‘f them up’ via lip-reading.

However, Suarez told the AP after the game it was not intentional.

“I was trying to go up and in, up and in, and I guess it was too much,” Suárez said. “I did it before. He fouled it off, and I was trying to go in again and it happened to hit him.”

Judge told the media he still has some swelling where he was hit, but he can grab a bat – and even though he told Boone he wants to be in Wednesday's lineup, even if he misses a game or two, not losing the player who leads MLB with 26 home runs and a 1.115 OPS for an extended time is a big sigh of relief.