PHOENIX — Without any guarantees of it happening, Aaron Judge is holding out hope of returning from a calf strain in time for the playoffs. 

“I’d like to be back by the postseason; that’s definitely the plan,” Judge said Saturday afternoon. “We’re going to do everything we can to get back as soon as we can.” 

That was a slightly less definitive statement than what Judge consistently said during the summer when he was trying to come back from a right rib stress fracture, which he did after three-plus months on Sept. 8. 

But now the clock is ticking even louder, with Saturday marking 10 days away from Game 1 of the American League wild card series. 

“Definitely frustrated,” said Judge, who played seven games after missing 84 on the IL with the rib injury. “Dealt with strains before and kind of played through them, but this was in a different spot where it made it a little bit more difficult.” 

Judge did not reveal what grade the strain was, but said it involved his Soleus muscle, which he indicated was more important to running and hitting compared to the gastrocnemius muscle. 

“The focus is still the same, to be ready to go for October,” Judge said. 

In the meantime, the Yankees are banking on their summer without Judge paying off now that he is back on the IL. 

“Lean on each other,” Cody Bellinger said. “The game itself is hard; if you add too much pressure on yourself, the game becomes even harder. So we really just have to play for each other, lean on each other, pass the baton, do your job and control what you can control.” 

The Yankees did that on Friday night, racing out of the gates to score five runs in the first inning of a 9-2 win against the Diamondbacks, just hours after the team announced Judge was going on the 10-day injured list with a right calf strain. 

But they also got off well at the beginning of June after Judge landed on the IL with a right rib stress fracture before their lineup became a black hole for an extended stretch during the summer. They had finally started to break out of it shortly before Judge got back on Sept. 8, but after having him back for seven games, they now find themselves in the same spot again, less than two weeks away from the start of the playoffs. 

“We’ve played most of the year this way, and I feel like in a lot of cases, especially some of our key guys over the last few weeks have started to, especially offensively, get it going like we know they’re capable of,” manager Aaron Boone said. 

During the 84-game span that Judge missed this summer, the Yankees ranked 26th in runs per game (4.06), 29th in batting average (.227), 27th in OPS (.681), and 29th in WRC+ (90). 

But over the tail end of that stretch, and into Judge’s return, the Yankees started to hit more like they are capable of. That included the trade deadline addition of Luis García Jr., the emergence of rookie outfielder Spencer Jones, and Bellinger getting back on track after returning from his own hamstring injury in August. 

Perhaps most importantly, it has coincided with the reemergence of Ben Rice. The lefty slugger was a game wrecker for the first two months of the season before Judge went down, then cooled off a bit during the summer (albeit with some good stretches along the way) before catching fire again over the last few weeks. Entering Saturday, over his last 22 games, Rice had hit .353 with a 1.037 OPS and five home runs, including his 39th of the season Friday night. 

“Special year,” Gerrit Cole said. “Has made some really good adjustments from previous years, going into this year, and I think he’s really started to heat back up here the last few weeks after having to make some adjustments in the middle of the season. Not only is he really proficient with the bat, but he’s a smart player and a hard worker, which is leading him to have a really outstanding season for us.” 

The Yankees need that to continue for however long Judge is out (and even if and when he returns) for them to play deep into October, though Rice isn’t looking at it as having to do any more — which got some hitters in trouble during the three-time AL MVP’s first absence. 

“I would think that everyone just goes out there and stays within themselves, tries to put together quality at-bat after quality at-bat,” he said. “Pitching is always going to be doing their thing, like they have for us all year. So from an offensive standpoint, just do what we did [Friday]: go out and have a team at-bat, trust the guy behind you and keep the line moving.” 

To Rice’s point, the Yankees have leaned on the strength of their pitching staff all season, but that was especially the case during Judge’s three months on the IL this summer, when they were able to scratch out enough wins in low-scoring games, with their pitchers keeping them in it almost every night. 

“We have a lot of confidence in here,” Cole said. “For the most part of the summer, we’ve been tested really, really hard and we responded, by and large, really, really well. We have a lot of perfectionists in here. We’re always striving to be perfect and trying to be the best. But the reality is we’ve had a lot of obstacles we’ve had to overcome and, by and large, we’ve played really well.”