The Yankees are surviving without Aaron Judge and Aaron Boone is done answering questions about it

The Yankees lost the best hitter in baseball for a month and a half, and the early returns suggest they might just be okay. They beat the Guardians in extra innings, and manager Aaron Boone made clear he is finished entertaining the idea that his team can’t function without Aaron Judge.

New York pulled out a 7-5, 10-inning win over Cleveland, and Boone is already growing tired of questions about adjusting without Judge, insisting the team has more than enough talent to contend until the slugger returns from a rib stress fracture expected to sideline him into August.

The case for calm

Boone’s confidence isn’t pure bluster. The Yankees lead the majors in home runs and have enough bats to paper over one absence for a few weeks, and a gritty extra-innings win on the road is the kind of result that backs up the talk. Pundits have floated that the team could still chase an AL MVP from within the roster, which tells you the cupboard is hardly bare even with Judge on the shelf.

The case for worry

Then again, Judge and Ben Rice accounted for a huge share of the team’s power, and Rice has cooled without Judge hitting behind him to keep pitchers honest. Even franchise icon Derek Jeter weighed in on the setback, a sign of how much attention the injury commands.

A few weeks of treading water is survivable. A prolonged slide while the AL East stays hot is how a division gets away from you.

What it really comes down to

The Yankees don’t need to win the next six weeks. They need to not lose them. Banking enough games to stay in striking distance until Judge returns is the whole assignment, and Boone’s irritation is really a manager trying to keep his clubhouse from buying into the narrative that the season hinges on one man. It mostly does. His job is to make sure the rest of the roster doesn’t play like it.