Aaron Judge gets a rest, isn't in starting lineup against Orioles

BALTIMORE — Nothing wrong with Aaron Judge, Aaron Boone said. Just a day off.

The outfielder, off to one of the best starts of his career, did not start Monday night’s series opener against the Orioles at Camden Yards after playing in 13 straight games. He was available to pinch hit.

“I was kind of targeting one day on this trip,” Boone said before the start of the four-game series, which came on the heels of the four-game series in Chicago against the White Sox. “Considered the day game [Sunday] . . . just decided this was a good day.”

Judge came into Monday hitting .296 with 12 homers (which leads the majors),  27 RBIs and a 1.001 OPS.

Entering Monday, Judge had hit safely in 16 of his last 20  games, going 25-for-78 (.321) with 11 homers, 25 RBIs and 23 runs in that span.

Boone said the day off was not a product of seeing anything with Judge physically that suggested the slugger was in need of one.

“I’m sure at this level you get a little bit beat up,'' he said, "but this is more about I kind of had one of these days in mind [to rest him] as we headed off on this trip.”

No set innings limit for Sevy

Luis Severino entered Monday's start having thrown 28 2/3 innings this season. Because of a variety of injuries, hetotaled 18 regular-season innings from 2019-21, meaning that at some point this season, the Yankees will be forced to begin limiting his innings.

“Honestly, I haven’t heard us utter a number,” Boone said of how many innings that limit would be. “I would say that remains very fluid. Like we picked a spot where we had the rainouts, we kind of slotted him back. I could see us doing that throughout the summer, assuming everything continues to go well. Maybe pick a spot where we go short in an outing if we’re set up with an off-day bullpen-wise. But no hard and fast 'we’re not going over this [innings] number.' We’ll just kind of monitor and as best we can gauge where he’s at as the season unfolds.”