Yankees captain Aaron Judge to go on injured list with flexor strain

Yankees captain Aaron Judge has a flexor strain in his right elbow but no acute damage to his ulnar collateral ligament that might cause a long-term layoff.

NEW YORK — Yankees captain Aaron Judge, his teammates and New York’s fan base exhaled Saturday when the two-time AL MVP learned he has a flexor strain in his right elbow but no acute damage to his ulnar collateral ligament that might cause a long-term layoff.

Judge was sent for an MRI on Saturday and missed just his second game this season, a 9-4 loss to Philadelphia. He had a platelet-rich plasma injection and will go on the injured list but hopes to return to action in 10 days to two weeks, initially as a designated hitter.

“You never want to go in the tube. It’s never fun. You don’t know what’s going to show up,” Judge said. “That’s why I kind of pushed off a lot of that imaging and stuff like that because if I don’t what’s going on, it can’t hurt you, I guess.”

Judge leads the major leagues with a .342 batting average and 1.160 OPS. He has 37 home runs and 85 RBIs for a New York team that opened a seven-game AL East lead by late May but dropped a season-high 6 1/2 games back of first-place Toronto on Saturday.

“All in all, we got good news today,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I think all of us kind of feared the worst.”