On Friday night, the New York Yankees will play the first of a three-game series with the New York Mets in the Bronx.
They are fresh off a series where they swept the Colorado Rockies in three games.
Aaron Judge made his return to the lineup on Tuesday.
After a night off on Thursday, he is back in the starting lineup (and hitting 3rd) against the Mets.
FantasyPros wrote: “NYY Yankees Lineup 09/11 1. Ben Rice DH 2. Cody Bellinger LF 3. Aaron Judge RF 4. Luis Garcia 1B 5. Spencer Jones CF 6. George Lombard SS 7. Ryan McMahon 3B 8. Austin Wells C 9. Anthony Volpe 2B”
Joe Girardi Makes Honest Aaron Judge Statement
Prior to Thursday’s game, former Yankees manager Joe Girardi spoke about Judge (via YES Network).
Meredith Marakovits: “You need every game you can get. But you also need to bring Aaron Judge along in a smart way. How difficult is that knowing how valuable he is to the team, but also wanting to make sure he is here for the long haul?”
Girardi: “Well, Brian Cashman used to always tell me that you got to protect players from themselves, and that’s what Aaron Boone is doing. Judge, he wants to play every day. He wants to play all nine innings. But you can’t do that because he’s been shut down for so long. So you got to bring him back slowly, and hopefully they’ll find a DH day or two in there in this. But the fact that he played six and eight innings was very impressive to me, because you wouldn’t do that necessarily to a player in the beginning of spring training. So that tells me his body’s in pretty good shape.”
– Joe Girardi on Will Warren’s 2026 performance
Girardi was briefly Judge’s manager at the start of his MLB career.
Looking At Judge Right Now
Judge has appeared in two games since making his return to the lineup.
The three-time MVP is currently batting .249 with 55 hits, 17 home runs, 38 RBIs, 44 runs and five stolen bases in 61 games.
He turned 34 in April.
Ex-Yankees Manager Joe Girardi Makes Honest Aaron Judge Statement