Under The Knife 6/3/26

Drink a Sunline

AARON JUDGE, OF NYY (inflamed rib)

I have sat here for an hour, trying to figure out how to explain why Aaron Judge is feeling a rib injury in his shoulder, with enough pain and disruption that he’s headed to see a specialist. So I paused, watched Widow’s Bay - which is utterly original and tonight’s episode was another masterpiece - came back to it and still am not sure how to explain. I called an ATC, a ortho, and another mentor and … ok here goes.

The easiest way to think about it is that the ribs and shoulder are much less separate than we imagine. The shoulder blade essentially floats on top of the rib cage. It isn’t attached by a true joint in the way your knee or elbow is. Instead, muscles connect everything together into a moving platform. If something happens along the upper ribs, especially around where muscles like the serratus anterior, intercostals, pec minor, or portions of the scapular stabilizers attach, the pain can show up almost entirely in the shoulder.

In other words, Judge may be feeling a rib problem in the place where the body is trying to compensate for it. For a hitter, that’s a significant concern because the rib cage isn’t passive. It’s the bridge between the lower half and the hands. Every swing begins with force generated from the ground, transferred through the torso, and ultimately delivered to the barrel. If one section of that chain becomes painful, the body finds workarounds. Sometimes those workarounds show up as altered mechanics. Sometimes they show up as decreased bat speed. Sometimes they simply show up as soreness the next morning. If you’ll note, it should be very measurable.

What’s encouraging is that the Yankees don’t appear especially concerned about structural shoulder damage. If this were a labrum, rotator cuff, or instability issue, the language would likely be very different. Instead, this sounds more like one of those annoying kinetic-chain injuries where the symptom is obvious but the source is harder to pinpoint.

The key question now isn’t whether Judge can play through discomfort. He probably can. The question is whether he can rotate violently enough to remain Aaron Judge while doing it. That’s what the Yankees, and Judge himself, are trying to figure out. The good news is that rib-related injuries tend to heal. The bad news is that hitters use the rib cage for literally everything, including the breathing required to complain about being injured.

There’s stuff on Tarik Skubal coming up. Elly De La Cruz. A bunch of pitchers. Man, just Quick Cuts is worth the five dollar price of admission per day let alone for the whole month. Look - email me and tell me why I should give you a 30-day trial and I will. I want more people to read this and to watch Widow’s Bay. It’s that good, and I think this is pretty good as well.