The seeds of Aaron Judge’s injury were apparently planted many weeks ago.

Judge, the New York Yankees star slugger, spoke with reporters on Friday about his rib injury. During his remarks, Judge revealed that he believes he initially suffered the injury while diving for a ball in the outfield in late April during a game against the Houston Astros. 

Judge added that he continued to play through the injury for about a month before the pain became too much, per Jon Heyman of the New York Post.

That might explain a lot for the back-to-back reigning AL MVP Judge. Through the entire month of May, Judge batted an underwhelming .243 with five home runs, 18 RBI and a very modest .805 OPS.

Judge last played on May 31 during a game against the Athletics before the pain apparently became unbearable. He has since been diagnosed with a stress fracture of the first rib on his right side.

The injury is now expected to sideline Judge for at least the next four to six weeks. While the Yankees do anticipate that Judge will be back at some point this year, he is now effectively done until at least the second half of the season.

Fortunately for Judge, the diagnosis could have been much worse, especially in light of a very concerning sign that emerged about his injury earlier this week. Still though, Judge was playing through pain for a long time and is now paying the price for it.