Aaron Judge ended up needing surgery on his left shoulder after all.
Judge, whose left shoulder was ailing him frequently during his post-All-Star break slump, underwent arthroscopic surgery on it Monday, the Yankees announced. He is expected to be ready for the start of spring training, the team said.
The procedure involved "a loose-body removal and cartilage clean-up," and was performed by Dr. ElAttrache in Los Angeles.
Judge was seen frequently with a massive wrap of ice over his left shoulder as his first half took a nose dive at the start of the second half.
He had banged hard into the outfield wall on a few occasions, while also toppling over the short wall along the right-field line while making a catch on his 25th birthday, though that was back in April.
The 25-year-old rookie posted a 1.139 OPS with 30 homers in 84 games leading up to the All-Star break. He won the Home Run Derby and competed in his first All-Star Game in Miami, and then posted a .690 OPS with seven homers in 44 games immediately following the break, while striking out at least once in an MLB-record 37 straight games.
Judge was getting beat with high fastballs, while fouling many hittable pitches straight back to the screen, as he played through the injury, which he downplayed.
In late August, Joe Girardi gave Judge a pair of off-days in which he did not participate in any baseball activities.
"I've got ice on my shoulders, my knees. I wish I could ice my whole body. I've got to ice it every day. The whole body is kind of beat up," Judge finally admitted then.
Player and team were both contemplating the possibility of a cortisone shot at the time, though nothing was ever made official publicly on that front. Judge, however, went on to turn things around in September, posting a 1.352 OPS with 15 homers in 27 games.
Asked before the playoffs began if Judge did indeed have a cortisone shot, Brian Cashman responded: "I wouldn't say." The GM then said in early November that he did not expect any of the Yankee players would require offseason surgery.
Judge, who belted a rookie-record 52 homers, was named AL Rookie of the Year and finished runner-up for AL MVP. He posted an .816 OPS with four homers in the postseason.
