How Judge's return may turn the tide in Yankees' favor

We talk all the time about the long season in baseball, because there isn’t a season like it in team sports. But the Yankees are set to see how they do in a short one, September and October, as soon as they finally get Aaron Judge back -- maybe as early as this week if the baseball gods smile on them.

It was not long ago that the Yankees general manager, Brian Cashman, said, “We’re not just a good team. We’re a great team.” Clearly, he was referring to the team with No. 99, not without him. Cashman knows what everybody does: The Yankees have managed to hang in there without Judge, despite struggling so often to score runs. They have held their place in the American League East, behind the Rays and ahead of the surging Red Sox.

But if they are going to do big things, and big things mean winning a World Series for the first time in 17 years, they need the big guy to have finally recovered from the stress fracture in his right rib. Judge was scheduled to face living batting practice on Monday at the Stadium, during an off-day for his team. He was making his way around the bases and taking fly balls in the outfield during the Yankees' West Coast trip last week. There is the thought that he could be back in the lineup as early as either the Rockies-Yankees series that begins Tuesday night at the Stadium, or the one with the Mets to follow.

Then everybody will see how quickly he can look like what he has been for years: their Babe Ruth.

The Yankees have been without Judge for three months, something that seem like about 99 lifetimes to Yankees fans.

They were 36-23 after the last game Judge played on May 31. They have been 45-39 since. When Judge went down, they were 1 1/2 games behind the Rays in the East. Now they are still just four games behind, as the Rays have been just marginally better since June 1, playing 49-38 ball themselves.

The Red Sox? We know what has happened since they swept the Judge-less Yankees at Fenway Park in the last week of June.

They were 32-46 starting that series and have been 47-19 since, including their four-game sweep of the Orioles over the weekend. They are even closer to the Yankees in third place than the Yankees are to the Rays, just 2 1/2 games behind New York going into Monday afternoon’s game at Fenway Park against the Angels.

Short season for everybody, then, in the AL East. The Yankees want to stay ahead of the Red Sox, so that if there is a Wild Card Series between the two teams it would be played at Yankee Stadium, and not Fenway. But the Yankees still believe they have a shot at catching the Rays between now and Sept. 27, when the regular season ends. The short season we’re talking about absolutely includes what has a chance to feel like the most important regular-season series the Yankees and Rays have ever played, four games at the Stadium starting with a doubleheader on Sept. 22, one that might very well decide who wins the East and who gets a bye -- and even who might host a Yankees-Red Sox Wild Card Series.

If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is. And is exactly what September baseball is still supposed to look like and feel like. You know the Yankees like their chances, for all of it, if Judge is back up and running. And that means doing more than running in the outfield before games.

By the way? Judge has made it clear that he’s not interested in even a brief rehab assignment in the Minors.

“Why waste at-bats?” he said.

So, it will be Spring Training for him and a pennant race all at once. His team has played a little more than half a season without him and managed to be just six games over .500. Ben Rice has been the team’s slugger, up to 36 home runs now, still with a chance to get to 40 and to 100 RBIs. The kid, Spencer Jones -- 6-foot-7, same as Judge is -- has been on a heater lately, batting .308 over his past 20 games with four home runs and 13 RBIs. It is hard to believe that things will get worse for Rice and Jones if and when Judge back in Aaron Boone’s batting order.

Barring any further setbacks, the Yankees will finally be whole when Judge is back. Knowing what we know about him, he is probably thinking about going deep his first game back, maybe even in the bottom of first -- if only because he already has seven first-inning home runs so far this season.

But even in San Diego over the weekend, there was still no official word about when Judge might play. When asked if it might be as early as this week, Boone said, “I don’t know.”

The only thing we know for sure is this: What the Yankees look like when Aaron Judge is hitting home runs. Small-sample season left for the Yankees. But one, they believe, full of big possibilities. The general manager says they can be great. We may be about to find out.