BOSTON — Aaron Boone doesn’t “necessarily” expect the rehabbing Giancarlo Stanton to rejoin the Yankees this weekend at Fenway Park, but he added a caveat.

“Stranger things have happened,” Boone said with a smile Friday before the Yankees started a three-game series against the Red Sox.

Still, Boone said his “expectation” is that Stanton, who missed all of  spring training and the first 2 ½ months of the season with tendon tears in both elbows — which the Yankees have called “tennis elbow” on their injury list — will play a fourth rehab game with Double-A Somerset on Saturday after playing Tuesday through Thursday with the Patriots.

Ultimately, Boone indicated, the final call for Stanton’s return will be made by Stanton himself.

“I think [for] the training staff, he’s kind of checked the boxes now, especially all of the running progression he’s done the last few weeks and the amount of live at-bats that he’s logged,'' he said. "The biggest say is probably Big G’s now.”

Stanton, who Boone said went through a “light” workout on Friday at Yankee Stadium, went 2-for-3 with a walk and three RBIs in his first rehab game with Somerset before going 1-for-4 on Wednesday. He went 0-for-4 on Thursday.

“This will tell me how close I am,” Stanton told reporters in Somerset before Tuesday’s game. “There’s no simulating a major-league game, but if you want to get as close as you can, you get to a minor-league game.”

Boone said he’s been “pleased” with what he’s seen on video from Stanton, who spent two weeks in Tampa at the club’s minor-league complex taking at-bats against minor-leaguers before starting his rehab assignment on Tuesday.

“His at-bats look good,” Boone said. “He’s very detailed and particular about how he feels, and he feels like his timing’s pretty good right now and that he feels up to speed on the fastball and things like that. My sense in the little bit of communication I’ve had with him this week is that he feels like he’s close.”

Boone said in watching Stanton’s at-bats, he looks for a variety of things.

“How he’s reacting to pitches,” he said. “What’s the quality of the pitch, what’s the take look like, is he getting in a strong position making a good move at the ball? Some of the at-bats I’ve seen, I feel like he’s recognizing balls out of the zone and things like that. And he looks strong to me when he lets it go.”

If Stanton does play with Somerset again on Saturday — Boone said that was his expectation but that a final decision on it wouldn’t come until Friday night — that would make it unlikely that the Yankees would have him  travel to Boston to play in a 1:35 p.m. game on Sunday to make his debut.

After finishing a six-game trip here on Sunday — which started with a three-game sweep of the Royals — the Yankees will open a seven-game homestand Monday night against the Angels.

Whenever Stanton makes his 2025 debut, it will have been a long road there.

He arrived in Tampa for spring training having not swung a bat for three weeks because the elbows flared up, prompting him to shut down. Stanton said in February that it was an issue dating to the second half of last season and one that will never fully heal this season. It will be, he said then, a matter of pain tolerance, a point he’s clearly closing in on.

“I think he’s in a good place physically,” Boone said. “It’s now about amassing the reps and building the endurance part of things.”

Jazz Chisholm Jr., who left Tuesday’s game in Kansas City with a stiff neck only to return Wednesday and then leave that night’s game with left groin tightness, was out of the lineup a second straight game Friday. He hit inside before Friday’s game and took grounders on the field. Both Chisholm and Boone anticipated him being available if needed Friday night.