If Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are healthy when the first round of the playoffs begin for them next week, it means both of them get a do-over on the short season with an even shorter one. No one will care that through Tuesday's 12-1 win vs. the Blue Jays, the two of them combined had played just 44 of the Yankees’ 55 games. Nobody will care how much time they spent on the injured list last season, when Stanton missed 144 games and Judge missed 60 after missing 50 the year before.

They just need to be there for the postseason, because if they are there for the postseason, the Yankees might have the offense they were supposed to have this season, and might go back to the World Series for the first time in 11 years. Reggie Jackson used to talk about how great Yankees were measured on whether or not they could win 11 games in October. This year it would take 13 victories for the Yankees to win it all. If Judge and Stanton hit home runs the way they were at the start of the season -- which means before they both got hurt again -- if the Yankees do make it back to the World Series, then Yankee fans won’t care how much time Stanton and All Rise Judge have spent lately sitting down.

The other day Judge was asked about the expanded baseball playoffs for 2020, which means an extra round, even if you’ve finished first or second in your division, and this is what he said:

“Not a fan.”

But here is something else he said last week about October expectations for the Yankees:

“I think they are the same as when the season started. I feel we have the best team out there. We had a lot of key guys miss some time. We are getting back to full strength at the right time, right at the stretch. This is the best time to be hot.’’

When Judge hit 52 home runs in 2017, when he finished second in the AL MVP Award voting to Jose Altuve, he had not just become the face of the Yankees, he had become as big a star as there was in the sport, and that includes Mike Trout. Joe Girardi, who was his manager that year, said Judge looked like a defensive end. One who kept hitting balls out of sight. But the Yankees couldn’t hold a 3-2 lead over the Astros in the ALCS, when the Astros shut down Judge and everybody else in Games 6 and 7 at Minute Maid Park.

The next year, Judge hit home runs in Game 1 and Game 2 of an AL Division Series against the Red Sox, and the Yankees left Fenway Park even with the Sox at one game apiece. They never won another game that series. And last year, they lost to the Astros again in the ALCS, again in Minute Maid Park, this time when Altuve hit a walk-off home run to win Game 6. Stanton hit a Game 1 homer for the Yankees. Judge hit one in Game 2. That was it.

Then came this season. Stanton hit a monster homer off Max Scherzer on Opening Night and you thought, "Look out." Before long, he was back on the IL with a hamstring strain. Judge had nine homers early, and you wondered how many he could hit in a 60-game season, but then he was back on the IL, too, and missed 30 games with a calf injury between Aug. 11 and Sept. 16. We’re talking here about two players who combined for 111 home runs in 2017, when Stanton was still with the Marlins. By the way? Stanton did hit 38 homers for the Yankees in his first year in New York. But last year, it was as if he didn’t play at all.

Stanton is, of course, acutely aware of how disappointed Yankee fans are that he hasn’t been able to stay on the field.

“I would be disappointed,” Stanton said back in August, when no one was quite sure when he would play again. “I am disappointed in myself. I would be disappointed if I was rooting for me.”

The Yankees survived without him, and without Judge, even though the team did go through a 5-15 stretch during which what was supposed to be one of the best teams in the sport -- a favorite to go to the World Series as much as the Dodgers are -- looked like one of the worst.

Now the big guys are back for the only season that has ever mattered to the Yankee fans Stanton was talking about. All they have to do to change the narrative about them, to make things right with Yankee fans, is do two things: Stay on the field. And hit home runs. Mickey Mantle was hurt a lot, too. But The Mick always seemed to own October. Now Judge and Stanton get another chance to do the same. Not get hurt again. Put a hurt on the other guys.