Safety first for Judge after HR

Aaron Judge is back to hitting homers rather than celebrating them, and that’s probably for the best.

Judge, a day after chipping his front left tooth when Brett Gardner’s helmet smacked into his mouth following Gardner’s walk-off homer, launched his own blast in the fourth inning of the Yankees’ 6-1 win over the Rays on Friday.

The right fielder, who had his tooth temporarily repaired before Friday’s game, lined a 1-2 pitch into the left-field seats to make it 2-0. It was his 33rd homer of the season, and he now has 37 homers through his first 125 career games, third-most in MLB history. Judge trails only Mark McGwire (42) and Rudy York (38).

Earlier, Gardner homered again to lead off the bottom of the first — and this time Judge stayed away.

“[Thursday] night I had to sit there and stare at it all night,” Judge said of his chipped tooth. “I took one picture and gonna hold that to myself.”

Ironically, he suffered the injury while trying to protect his teammates.

“The helmet rolled in the middle of everybody and I didn’t want people jumping and breaking an ankle,” Judge said of the aftermath of Gardner’s dramatic blast. “I figured I’d pick [the helmet] up. With everyone jumping around, I think it hit off someone’s back and it got me.”

He considers the loss of half of a tooth to be a lesson learned.

“Next time, I’m picking [the helmet] up and tossing it across the field,” Judge said. “It got me pretty good. It shocked me at first. I thought both my front teeth got knocked in. I just tried to cover up as fast as I [could] and get out of there.”