Six weeks ago the Red Sox were an afterthought. Now they’re a playoff team. Chris Cotillo put the whiplash into words the moment it became official on Sunday:
What would have been unthinkable in June is now a reality: The Red Sox have clinched a postseason berth.https://t.co/0zsirx83Yo
— Chris Cotillo (@ChrisCotillo) September 20, 2026
That’s the good news. The bad news is who’s waiting on the other side.
Because the Yankees clinched the higher seed, this is a road trip. Boston flies to the Bronx for a three-game Wild Card Series — Yankee Stadium, hostile crowd, national attention, Michael Kay calling it for ESPN Radio. That tells you everything about how big this series already is before a single pitch is thrown.
The one variable nobody can pin down is Aaron Judge. On Monday, Aaron Boone told reporters the Yankees weren’t planning on having him — a moderate-grade right calf strain, an IL stint, a PRP injection to speed the recovery. “We’re planning on him not being a part of that,” Boone said, before adding he wasn’t ruling it out either. That should have been the end of it. It wasn’t.
A day later, Judge told ESPN’s Jorge Castillo something very different — that his goal is to be ready for Game 1, and that the decision isn’t really his to make. “If he says I’m not going to be ready, I got no control over that,” Judge said, deferring to Boone while making his own intentions clear.
Yankees star Aaron Judge told @jorgecastillo today that he intends to play in the wild card series next week. Here’s the news from Jorge, free at ESPN: https://t.co/STV4OR0CIe
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) September 23, 2026
The reigning face of the Yankees just said he plans to be in the lineup, one day after his own manager suggested otherwise. Not a hedge. A declaration. So no, this isn’t settled. It’s a genuine split between what the team is planning around and what Judge himself intends to do, and Boston needs to sit with that discomfort instead of assuming the calf solved their Judge problem for them.
Here’s the case for rooting hard for the calf strain to win: Jon Morosi’s numbers are the story most Red Sox fans haven’t fully absorbed. New York is 7-6 against Boston this year, and Judge played in only three of those 13 games. The Red Sox have averaged three runs per game against Yankees pitching all season, full lineup, everybody healthy. THREE. That’s not a Judge problem. That’s a Yankees-pitching-is-just-better problem, and it existed long before this calf strain entered the conversation.
Which is where the “don’t bet on it” half of this take comes in. Boston is 5-8 over its last 13 games rolling into the biggest series of the year. A team playing .500 baseball in September, one that can’t crack three runs a game against this specific opponent even at full strength, isn’t suddenly a lock because the best hitter in the building might be limited. Judge sitting helps. It doesn’t fix an offense that’s been running on fumes down the stretch.
So cheer for the calf. Hope Boone’s version of Monday turns out to be right and Judge’s version of Tuesday doesn’t. Just don’t confuse hoping for a break with having a plan, because right now Boston has neither a healthy offense nor a guarantee that the guy hitting cleanup for New York is even hurt enough to matter.
