Aaron Judge vs. Blue Jays: Status, matchup history and lineup projection

Aaron Judge might not hit .400, but he's still having a historically great first half. The New York Yankees' outfielder enters Monday's action slashing .356/.458/.722 with 30 home runs and 67 RBI in 83 games. He's been, by virtually every metric, the best hitter in the game this season and really the past several years by far. Now, he'll look to pad his stats against a Toronto Blue Jays team he's owned throughout his career.

Judge has hit an absurd 39 home runs in 123 games against Toronto in his career, posting an OPS over 1.000. His numbers against the Jays are even better at Rogers Centre, as Judge has a 1.053 OPS in Canada over the course of his career. He sees the ball incredibly well in Toronto, and has hit some truly majestic home runs at Rogers Centre.

This is not only a big series for Judge as he tries to pad his MVP lead, but it's a big four-game set for the Yankees, as they try and gain some separation over their AL East rivals. The Yankees lead the division, but are only 3.0 games ahead of the third-place Blue Jays. If things go wrong in this series for New York, the Jays can make things incredibly uncomfortable for the Bronx Bombers. A big Judge series would go a long way toward the Yankees having the success they need.

With Game 1 of the series just hours away, let's take a look at everything you need to know.

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Aaron Judge injury status and possibility of rest

While Aaron Judge has a lengthy injury history, he's been mostly healthy in recent seasons, and the same remains true for the 2025 campaign. Judge is fully healthy, and is putting up video game-like numbers as a result.

While fully healthy players get a day of rest all the time, it's hard to envision any scenario in which Judge sits out Monday's action. Judge has appeared in all 83 contests for the Yankees and has started in every game but one. The Yankees might decide to get him off his feet by using him as a DH, as they've done several times this season, but the odds of him sitting out the first game of a crucial series against a division rival they're directly competing with are practically zero.

Aaron Judge history vs. Max Scherzer

Max Scherzer might not be the dominant force he once was, but he isn't a three-time Cy Young award winner by accident. When healthy, he still knows how to pitch. With that being said, Judge is great in his own right, and has a good amount of regular season success to speak of against Scherzer, recording four hits in 14 at-bats (.286 BA) with a home run.

In addition to his regular season success against Scherzer, Judge had a memorable moment against the future Hall of Famer in the 2021 All-Star Game. Judge drilled a long home run off Scherzer, giving the American League the early lead. This home run doesn't count in his overall statistics for Judge against Scherzer, but Judge has clearly seen the ball well off this right-hander.

Judge has yet to face Scherzer as a Blue Jay, but there certainly feels like a good chance for some pre-July 4 fireworks.

Where will Aaron Judge be in the Yankees lineup?

Judge has hit second and third exclusively in New York's batting order this season, and there's no reason to believe that trend will be any different on Monday. He'll be in either one of those spots.

Since Judge has hit third in the order in seven of New York's last ten games, I'll guess he'll hit in that spot again on Monday. If he isn't hitting third, he'll almost certainly be hitting second. Either way, he'll be in a position to play a key role in what the Yankees hope will be an important victory over their division rivals.