Six weeks ago the Yankees lost Aaron Judge, their best player, to a chip fracture in his right wrist, which led to the Andrew McCutchen trade last week.

Judge suffered the wrist fracture when he was hit by a errant fastball from Royals righty Jake Junis. Here's the play:

The Yankees initially announced Judge may return to game action within three weeks, which proved to be wildly optimistic. Judge was still in rest and rehab mode when the McCutchen trade went down, and, on Monday, he took a major step forward in his recovery when he was able to swing a bat for the first time.

According to the Associated Press, Judge took 50 swings Monday afternoon (25 dry swings and 25 off a tee) at 100 percent effort, and felt no pain in the wrist. Only normal soreness. Here's more from the Associated Press:

"Just moving in the right direction. Definitely a big step," Judge said, sitting in the Oakland Coliseum dugout. "I'm kind of on track with what we kind of wanted to accomplish, so I'm excited about the progress we're making so far. It feels good. So I've just got to keep moving forward, keep having good days and just keep kind of building off that. Hopefully ramp it up here in the next couple days and be back out there soon."

It should be noted dry swings and hitting off a tee is only the first step in the process. Judge has to get through this OK, then hit in the cage, then take full batting practice on the field, then face live pitching. The minor-league regular season ended Monday, though the Yankees have multiple affiliates in the postseason, while may allow Judge to play in some rehab games. If not, he'll have to get back up to speed in MLB games.

In the weeks between Judge's injury and the McCutchen trade the Yankees relied primarily on journeyman Shane Robinson and career infielder Neil Walker in right field. Giancarlo Stanton played through a tight hamstring in August that limited him to DH duty, mostly. The team's right fielders hit .175/.252/.292 with two home runs between Judge's injury and the McCutchen trade, which is a massive step down from the .285/.398/.548 batting line Judge produced before his injury.

For the first time since suffering a fractured wrist July 26, Aaron Judge was able to swing a bat Monday. USATSI

GM Brian Cashman acknowledged the McCutchen trade was essentially an insurance policy in case Judge's recovery was slowed or he suffered a setback. Should Judge return in September -- swinging a bat Monday was a step in that direction -- the Yankees would have five starting caliber outfielders (Judge, McCutchen, Stanton, Aaron Hicks, Brett Gardner) for the three outfield spots plus the DH spot. That's a good problem to have.

For now, the Yankees have capably -- if not belatedly -- replaced Judge with McCutchen, who is plenty good enough to remain in the lineup even after Judge returns. Up to this point Judge had been making slow progress recovering from the wrist injury. Now that he's started to swing a bat, things could ramp up fairly soon.