Some things haven’t changed in the nearly five weeks — and 30 games — since Aaron Judge’s name was last in the lineup.
The second-year slugger still can’t swing a bat. He still can’t throw at full intensity.
Still, Aaron Boone has seen enough progress in Judge’s recovery from a chip fracture in his right wrist to make the manager believe the outfielder will return to the field at 100 percent health before the season is over.
“I’m confident he’ll back at full strength,” Boone said.
Judge, who has been out since he was drilled July 26, took fly balls in right field and lobbed throws into shallow right prior to Monday’s game at Yankee Stadium, and was holding a plastic bat.
But with less than five weeks left in the regular season, the Yankees still have no timetable for when Judge will be allowed to swing a real bat.
“He can do a lot of things. Though all this, he’s been able to do his upper-body training, his upper-body work, we just haven’t gone to the next level of really starting to swing that,” Boone said. “Because of the way he rotates [while swinging], you’ve got to get to that point, where because of the fracture, it gets to that end point, and [the pain’s] nonexistent anymore, and that’s trending in the right direction, but it’s been something that’s moved kind of slow.”
Gary Sanchez homered in his first at-bat with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and went 2-for-4 and caught eight innings on Monday. Sanchez, out since July 24 with a strained right groin, played Saturday in the Gulf Coast League.
“I just feel like his conditioning is at a really good level,’’ Boone said. “To me, it’s the best it’s been all year. … Watching him move, watching him in the days up to him leaving us, watching him run, watching him swing the bat, his defensive drills, I just feel like he’s at a really good place defensively, and I know he’s worked really hard to get to that point.”
Didi Gregorius, on the DL with a bruised left heel, hit in the batting cage Monday.
“We’ve seen significant improvement with him every day,’’ Boone said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get him out on the field pretty shortly, and then start ramping up.”
Though Gregorius believes he can play through the pain now, Boone wouldn’t commit to bringing the shortstop back before he is at full strength.
“If there’s something that he’s able to tolerate, we’d have to see that,” Boone said. “We’d have to feel like he’s safe going out there, and can move around like he needs to, to be Didi Gregorius.”
Giancarlo Stanton remained stuck at 299 homers and went hitless again. He’s 1-for-19 with a dozen strikeouts in his last five games. … Aroldis Chapman (left knee tendinitis) is still being monitored, following a platelet-rich plasma injection Friday.
“A little bit of improvement, but we’re still in the early days of responding to the injection that he had,” Boone said. “As much as he can, really just kind of staying off of it the next few days, and let the injection take hold. A little down time, and rest, before we start ramping him back up.”
Longtime Yankees outfielder and former World Series MVP Hideki Matsui was honored in a pregame ceremony, recognizing the 44-year-old’s induction as the youngest member of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.



