Craig Skeptical of Aaron Judge Playing Right Field in Return

Craig Carton (0:02)

321, Carton Show.

I'll give you a little insight to what happens behind the scenes here at The Carton Show with Big Mac. Every afternoon from 2 to 6 o'clock, Big Mac just says to me, as we're coming back from break there, Yaggy line up. And I'm figuring out, maybe it's sponsored, gotta get a sponsorship in there. And I go, who's the sponsor? He goes, no sponsor, but judge is back. And I go, yeah? And he goes, well, don't you want the line up?

Not really.

Chris McMonigle (0:32)

You don't want to know where he's heading. You don't want to know if he's playing right field or DH.

Craig Carton (0:36)

I'm like, do I need the whole line up? Cause Aaron Judge decided to grace us with his presence after missing 84 games and the Yankees pretty much being just as good without him as they were with him. But I'm gonna assume, I don't know, he's batting fourth.

Chris McMonigle (0:53)

No.

Craig Carton (0:54)

First.

Chris McMonigle (0:55)

No.

Craig Carton (0:55)

Third.

Chris McMonigle (0:56)

Yes.

Craig Carton (0:56)

There you go.

Chris McMonigle (0:57)

Aaron Judge is batting third tonight and he is playing right field.

Craig Carton (1:03)

Okay, so.

Chris McMonigle (1:04)

So Judge is out there, out in the field and he's hitting third.

Craig Carton (1:07)

And it's so taxing to have a guy playing right field there that he's probably only gonna play, what, four innings of tonight's game or two at bats?

Chris McMonigle (1:15)

My guess is two at bats.

Craig Carton (1:16)

Whatever it is. Cause God forbid he asks him to swing the bat a third time.

Chris McMonigle (1:19)

I was waiting for this. I'm not sure how or possibly we're gonna get to that. I was waiting for this take from you. I'm surprised we haven't jumped on it earlier. Because I want to do football. Baseball players can't play baseball. And you hear people like Ken Rosenthal, and I heard this yesterday. And it did make me chuckle. I understand what he's saying, and I do pseudo agree with him.

But he was like, you know, it's a toll, people don't recognize it. Even running out there and standing in the outfield as long as outfielders do, it takes a toll on the body.

Craig Carton (1:46)

Ken Rosenthal should be put out of his misery.

Chris McMonigle (1:48)

He should be choked with one of his bow ties. Just the idea that he's got to run on and off the field and then stand out there for maybe 20 minutes at a time. It takes time to get used to.

Craig Carton (1:57)

So Ken Rosenthal has just allowed his entire crew to become, I'm going to be the biggest ass kisser next to Ben Verlander of baseball players in America. Like, what are we doing?

Chris McMonigle (2:08)

Listen, it takes, I know people, it's going to be hard for people to understand that.

Craig Carton (2:13)

You know how hard it is to stand out in a park for six minutes? Oh my gosh, how does he do it?

Chris McMonigle (2:21)

Yeah, it takes some time to get used to. He hasn't done anything in three months.

Like, they're going to have, he's going to ease into this.

Craig Carton (2:29)

Ease into standing? Yes, ease into playing.

Chris McMonigle (2:32)

Ease into playing, ease into standing, and then suddenly running full speed, because that's the last thing I want. This dude has done nothing for three months. The biggest fear for me isn't even necessarily the rib. My biggest fear is this guy's been doing nothing for three months, and suddenly he's going to be asked to go full speed on the drop of a dime, and he's going to hurt it.

Craig Carton (2:50)

So then DH him.

But if you DH him tonight, I don't understand that. First came back, let's just get him back, and then we'll worry about him playing defense. But real quick, I looked it up. I didn't know the answer, so I'm not pretending I did.

Chris McMonigle (3:03)

Okay.

Craig Carton (3:05)

According to ChatGPT, so we can take that for what it's worth, okay?

The average length of half an inning of a baseball, of any inning of a random baseball game this year, if you add that, and it's based on MLB Communications claiming that the average length of a game is two hours and 38 minutes this year. So it's accepted as the gospel for the sake of this conversation, okay?

Chris McMonigle (3:29)

So you're dividing that by 18?

Craig Carton (3:31)

Correct, correct. The average length of half an inning is how much?