The New York Yankees recently punched their ticket to the ALDS with a comfortable home win over the rival Boston Red Sox in Game 2 of the Wild Card series, sweeping that matchup and moving on to the next round. The Yankees won this series without superstar Aaron Judge, who is still recovering from an injury suffered toward the end of the regular season.

Recently, sports media personality Colin Cowherd of FS1 weighed in on Judge with a hot take.

“Aaron Judge didn't play. Stanton didn't play. None of it mattered when you have two phenomenal pitching performances. They're not just Aaron Judge reliant anymore,” said Cowherd, via Herd w/Colin Cowherd on X, formerly Twitter.

While the Yankees certainly didn't need Judge to make quick work of the Red Sox this week, or stay afloat in the AL standings overall this year, they will more than likely need him back in order to have any realistic chance of making a run at the World Series this year, starting with their upcoming matchup against the Tampa Bay Rays.

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Judge missed the majority of this season due to a ribcage injury and had only recently returned from that issue when he went down with a separate ailment, sidelining him for the Red Sox matchup and having some fans wondering if the season would crash and burn before the traditional playoffs even got underway.

However, now that the team has punched its ticket to the ALDS, fans will be scouring the internet for positive injury updates on Judge prior to Game 1.

In any case, the Rays and Yankees are set to get their series underway on Saturday at 6:30 pm ET from Tampa Bay.