Aaron Judge plays leftfield, but no balls hit to him in Yankees' exhibition loss to Cardinals

TAMPA, Fla. — Aaron Judge’s first game in leftfield since playing a handful of times there in 2016 while in the minor leagues had the outfielder do not much more than stand around.

Judge made zero plays in the Yankees’ 4-0 loss to the Cardinals Wednesday afternoon at Steinbrenner Field.

And it was mostly a product of starter Gerrit Cole striking out seven over 3 1/3 innings, Greg Weissert striking out three over 1 1/3 innings and Aaron McGarity fanning one in one-third of an inning while Judge was hoping to be tested in leftfield.

“I was fighting for a couple more innings but he [manager Aaron Boone] wouldn’t give it to me,” Judge said with a smile after his uneventful five-inning stint in left. “When you’ve got Gerrit Cole and Weissert and Clay Holmes, all those guys coming in, you usually don’t get too much action out there.”

Judge will again start in left Thursday afternoon against the Red Sox.

“I didn’t get any action so hope I’m back out there and get some work in,” said Judge, who went 1-for-2 to improve to 5-for-10 this spring. “Maybe I can talk to the pitchers and [say], ‘Hey, just leave a couple of them in the middle.’ ”

The Yankees are looking at putting Judge in left in some games this season at Yankee Stadium, something that would allow them to have Giancarlo Stanton start in the Stadium’s smaller rightfield. Stanton, who played an uneventful rightfield and went 1-for-2 Wednesday, has long discussed his preference to do more than simply DH as he believes when he plays the field he is far more “engaged” in the game.

“I’ve always thought he looks better at the plate when he’s in the field,” one AL scout said of Stanton.

Stanton agrees, as do the Yankees, who at times in the slugger’s five-year tenure in New York have perhaps played it overly cautious with him when it comes to the field. (To be fair, Stanton has had his share of injuries during that time.)

Boone said after Wednesday’s game, “in a perfect world,” of the “130-plus” games he hopes Stanton plays this season, about 50 of them would be in the field.

It was with that in mind that Judge talked to Boone in the offseason about possibly seeing some time in left, at the Stadium in particular.

“He [Boone] was talking about leftfield and trying to figure out ways to get G [Stanton] out in right and I said, ‘Well, just put me out there,’ ” Judge said of left. “He was trying to figure out how to get [Stanton in the field], or if he wanted to give JD [Josh Donaldson] a DH day or DJ [LeMahieu] a DH day, I kind of said, ‘I can play left. I played it in college so let me take a crack at it.’ ”

Judge played in left his freshman year at Fresno State and was primarily in centerfield — still to date his favorite position — and then played seven games in leftfield in 2016 while with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

“You’re dealing with righthanded, pull-side line drives. I think that’s the biggest factor,” Judge said of the biggest difference. “Everything else is pretty much the same. You just have to get used to the spin [being] a little different.”

Practice only game action can provide.

“BP’s tough because a lot of our guys hit homers, so you don’t really get too much action in BP. And you can’t really simulate it with fungoes or machine work pregame, so the only way you can do it is just getting reps in the game,” Judge said before smiling again. “Hopefully get a couple balls that kind of confuse you a little bit, make me look bad out there so we can get that out of the way.”