Will Yankees’ trade deadline moves even matter if Aaron Judge isn’t around to help?

CHICAGO — The New York Yankees can’t fix all of their offensive problems via trades before Monday’s deadline. There appears to be a lack of big-time bats on the market, and the Yankees might not even have the capital to trade for one anyway — especially if they make top prospect George Lombard Jr. off limits.

Manager Aaron Boone knows that. That’s likely why he was frustrated Thursday when asked if the Yankees need their front office to acquire offensive help.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to play the speculative game every single day now. What’s going to happen Monday will happen or not happen.

“We have to score better. We have to do a better job offensively, period, and not be looking over our shoulders for anyone. We have to find a way.”

Of course, Boone’s exasperation came from watching the Yankees lose their second game in extra innings in a row to the Chicago White Sox, this time a 2-1 heartbreaker in 11 frames.

It followed the same script as so many games have lately. The Yankees received excellent starting pitching, from Ryan Weathers, who threw seven scoreless innings. But the Yankees looked like they couldn’t hit a beach ball, striking out 10 times in six innings against Chicago starter Sean Burke and going a ghastly 1-for-15 with runners in scoring position.

It was much like Wednesday when they scored four runs in the first inning and then managed only one more the rest of the way in a brutal 12-inning loss to the White Sox.

It’s simple, no matter how much the Yankees don’t want to admit it.

Their offense has been terrible since right fielder Aaron Judge was sidelined at the beginning of June due to a fractured right rib. That’s because the players the Yankees rely on — and will continue to rely on even if they make a couple of moves at the deadline — haven’t shown any signs of turning their seasons around.

And it’s been made worse with the absences of designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton (right calf strain) and left fielder Cody Bellinger (left hamstring strain). The Yankees don’t seem to know when Stanton will be back, and they say it could be as late as mid-September until Bellinger returns to the field.

But the biggest problem has been the absence of Judge, whom the Yankees say will return this season, though they don’t have a timetable for the three-time MVP and Boone said he didn’t know the next time doctors would examine him to see if he’s ready to begin baseball activities.

Could Judge be back by early September? Or the very end of the regular season? Nobody seems to know, or at least the Yankees aren’t saying.

So it’ll likely be up to whatever complementary pieces the Yankees can acquire before Monday and the collection of struggling current Yankees to spark the offense. Without Judge, that mission seems more futile by the day.

Since June 1 — Judge’s first day out of the lineup — the Yankees have scored just 200 runs, the fifth fewest in MLB. Their combined 88 wRC+ is the third-worst in the majors over that span.

With just two months left in the season, what hope does anyone have that Jazz Chisholm Jr. (96 wRC+), Jasson Domínguez (84 wRC+) Anthony Volpe (96 wRC+), Austin Wells (50 wRC+), Trent Grisham (99 wRC+) and Ryan McMahon (79 wRC+) can help carry the team without Judge, Stanton or Bellinger?

Right now, the Yankees can only rely on Ben Rice (157 wRC+) and hope that Paul Goldschmidt (121 wRC+) doesn’t slow down the way he did last year. They can also hope there’s some oomph in the bat of rookie Spencer Jones (99 wRC+), who was promoted Sunday with Bellinger sidelined.

“I just feel like we need to reset,” Chisholm said. “Just come in, new series (Friday against the Chicago Cubs). Bounce off ideas, shake it off, talk about it, get it over with and get back to it.”

That reset has to include losing the sloppiness. On Thursday, Domínguez did the unthinkable, oversliding third base on a triple and getting tagged out when the score was 0-0 in the sixth. On Wednesday, catcher Ali Sánchez’s throwing error to third base with the Yankees one out from an extra-innings win should never have happened. Not just because he made a bad throw, but because he shouldn’t have risked the throw in the first place.

Goldschmidt said the answer for the Yankees isn’t “rocket science.”

“We just haven’t done a good enough job,” he said. “We can’t feel sorry for ourselves. We’ve got a game here in about 20 hours and we’ll be ready to go.”

And for the umpteenth time, Boone said the Yankees “have got to get better offensively.”

“Can’t expect or rely on anyone walking in to help us,” Boone said. “We’ve got to find it in there. Again, as I’ve said, we have more than enough capable guys in there and we’ve just got to be better across the board.”

Aaron Boone on Thursday’s loss, starting with Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s departure in the 11th inning. #YANKSonYES pic.twitter.com/SZipriCvS6

— YES Network (@YESNetwork) July 30, 2026

And Boone was right. Because no matter whom the Yankees trade for, they’re still going to need players such as Chisholm, Grisham, Wells and Volpe to hit better. What have they done to make anyone think that will happen?

Without Judge in the lineup to save them, fixing the offense may be an impossible task.