Judge: I’ll be ready for opener

Aaron Judge is keeping his promise. The Yankee slugger spent more time in doctors' offices than the batting cages during the first spring training, but he promised he would be there for Opening Day. When he was diagnosed with a broken rib and shut down for two weeks in the middle of spring training, he never gave up hope of being in the lineup.

He wasn't happy it took a pandemic and three months without baseball, but he is glad he gets a chance to keep his promise.

“I'm game ready. Like I told you guys in spring training, I was gonna be ready for Opening Day,” Judge said after the Yankees Monday night's intrasquad scrimmage at the Stadium. “So now I'm feeling good. The biggest thing now is just getting the reps in, because I missed so many at bats in the spring training we had.”

It was the first time Judge had spoken to the media since baseball rebooted training camp after the three-month hiatus.

There are just 16 days before the Yankees open the season July 23 against the Nationals in D.C. Monday night, Judge played in the outfield just to build up his reps and took his at-bats.

Meanwhile, Giancarlo Stanton said his right calf, which held him out of all but one exhibition game back in spring, has only recently improved to 100%. The slugger said Monday that he plans to be careful with it through this reboot of spring to make sure he makes it healthy to Opening Day.

“So, I am gonna go through camp, make sure they got the schedule lined up, to be ready to DH and go from there,” Stanton said. “You know, with the season being so short, this is really a kind of one-stop shop for getting it right. So I think we have a good schedule down and a good formula to get it right.”

Stanton said he feels eventually he will be able to play in the outfield this season.