The New York Yankees recently got a scare when superstar Aaron Judge exited their game against the Minnesota Twins with leg tightness. The incident came just days after Judge had made his highly anticipated return to the lineup after a ribcage injury that kept him out of the lineup for months, and the Yankees ended up losing the game 5-4.

Now, former player AJ Pierzynski has weighed in on how Judge's decision not to go on a rehab assignment before returning from the original injury may have played a role in this latest scare.

“This is why you go on a rehab assignment, especially when you missed as long as Aaron Judge did. He said it, this is like spring training, so you try to get the soreness and other little things that pop up out of the way by going on a rehab assignment,” he said, per Foul Territory on X, formerly Twitter. “He didn't do that, he didn't want to do that.”

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Indeed, Judge passed up the opportunity to go on a rehab assignment prior to making his return to the big leagues. Of course, it's impossible to know whether things would have played out differently with this recent injury scare had he opted to take such an assignment, but clearly, Pierzynski believes it couldn't have hurt.

Thankfully, Judge's leg injury doesn't appear to be anything too severe, and the star is hoping to ramp up even more before the playoffs begin in just a couple of weeks, with New York hoping to turn in a better performance than last year's ALDS loss.

New York will next take the field on Friday evening vs the Arizona Diamondbacks.