Aaron Boone's 'preprogrammed' mindset could doom the Yankees postseason | presented by The Show - video Dailymotion

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Watch Aaron Boone's 'preprogrammed' mindset could doom the Yankees postseason | presented by The Show - New York Post on Dailymotion

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00:00Joel Sherman here with three things I'm thinking. I usually, uh, do this, uh, when I wake up in the

00:07morning, put some thoughts together and go, uh, I just got back from the Yankee game, uh, worked

00:13the clubhouse, wrote a column, uh, and my, I, I, it, while it's fresh in my mind, I decided let's

00:19do this tonight. Hopefully you'll get to see it before game two on Wednesday, which now can be

00:24the last Yankee game of the season. And with number one here, why don't we go to the obvious

00:29place? Everyone's going to question Aaron Boone's wisdom in when he took Max Freed out of this game.

00:35And I think it's hard to ignore that. There's a, uh, a, a dual thing going on here. Alex Cora led his

00:44ace. Garrett Cochet go to a career high 117 pitches. It got him into two outs into the eighth and able

00:50to hand off directly to his closer, Aroldis Chapman. And he trusted a guy who on his final pitch of the

00:56game through the hardest pitch of this game. Garrett Cochet, a hundred point, two miles per hour to freeze

01:02Austin Wells with a runner on, um, and, uh, you know, preserve what was then a two, one lead. And it's a

01:10two, one leads because we got to go back earlier in this game for Boone's decision, not to ride his horse,

01:15not to ride his ace, Max Freed, who's by far his best pitcher at a time of year where I know we've turned

01:22away from starting pitching, but we saw it with Tarek Skubel today and Blake Snell. Uh, you know,

01:28when you have an ace, you got to ride your ace at this time of year, protect your bullpen for maybe

01:33other guys. Uh, let's set up the situation. Freed, uh, breezed through three innings and then had to

01:40work very hard in two on two out situations in the fourth and fifth. And therefore in the sixth,

01:45when that turned into a hardworking inning and there was a nine pitch walk to Carlos Narvaez,

01:49uh, perhaps Freed had struck him out on a curve ball earlier in the at bat. He didn't get it.

01:54It goes to nine pitches. He walks them at that point. Um, uh, Boone decides that he is going to

02:03let this is going to be the final inning for free because he's thinking he's going to have to face

02:07two more batters. And the second of the two batters, Jaron Duran, who is that point is over 12

02:13in his career against Freed. So he's thinking Freed could get out of this inning. I'll get him out

02:17after this point because of how hard he works, but it turns out that Freed gets a double play ball

02:21from Nate Eaton. And at that point, uh, Boone decides I'm going to send him out to get Duran to

02:29open the seventh. And I think the mistake there by Boone is he shouldn't say to Freed, you're there

02:35to get this guy. He should have said, you're there to get at least that guy. And then read the moment

02:41and Freed does get Duran makes a nice athletic play getting to first to take up a throw from

02:48Paul Goldschmidt to retire the very fast running hard Duran at first base. And at that point,

02:53Raffaella is, Zidane Raffaella is coming up. Who's two for 13 in his career, two singles,

02:59no walks against Freed, but Boone is pre-programmed and he's going to go at this point to Luke Weaver.

03:07And look, it's a small sample size, but Amon Rosario has good career numbers in a very small

03:13sample size against Crochet. And Boone started him on that small sample size instead of Jazz

03:20Chisholm at second base. And in this case, Raffaella has two for six with a walk against

03:27Weaver. The two are homers. Weaver gets ahead. Oh, and two on Raffaella. And then Raffaella,

03:33the bat really begins. Give him credit. There's five, two strike foul offs. And after the game,

03:39Weaver said to a couple of us in the clubhouse, I didn't want to throw him a cookie. That's a way

03:44of saying he knows he's given up a couple of homers to this guy. He sees him fouling off his

03:49best pitches. So even though Raffaella is one of the hardest guys to walk in the sport,

03:54Weaver is nibbling instead of attacking now and ends up walking Raffaella. Then there's a,

04:01you know, a double after that run against by Sogard against Judge's arm, which is still

04:09questionable. And then Yoshida, a two run single. It's two to one Boston and Boston goes on to win

04:17three to one. Boone even afterwards defended this. Of course he did. But this felt like one of those

04:23decisions where he's not feeling the game. And so to me, let's, let's just go to number two here,

04:28which is it's hard to ignore the two Alex's, the Alex Cora, Aaron Boone thing. They were,

04:35they were hired in the same year, right? Cora to manage the Red Sox in 2018 and Boone to manage

04:44the Yankees. This is the third time they faced in the playoffs. Cora's team won the first two,

04:50the first time in 18, they went on and won the world series. Look at this point,

04:55there's a pretty clear narrative. When the Yankees play against the AL Central under Boone,

05:01it's five series. They're five for five. They're 15 and four in total. Everyone else who's not the

05:06A's who they beat in a one game playoff in 18, they're seven and 19 and haven't won a series.

05:14And now it's seven and 20 because they're down 0-1 here. Aaron Boone has not shown that he can get

05:22his team to beat up a heavyweight at this time of year. If it's a weak AL Central team,

05:27the Yankees are good. The Red Sox went into Yankee Stadium tonight, stood toe to toe, two aces going

05:34great. And Boone made the move with the blink. He took his ace off the mound. Cora rode his ace.

05:42And it's hard to ignore that this is where they are. And that leads to number three.

05:48The Yankees could still save their season. They've got to have a two game winning streak now over the

05:54Red Sox on Wednesday and Thursday. That's it. If they don't, their season will have gone two or

06:00three games longer than the Mets, who were a total disappointment. The history of these wildcard

06:05series is whoever loses game one loses the series. It happens very quickly. A lot of pressure on

06:11Carlos Rodon. And then if they get by that on Schlittler, they still have home field advantage.

06:16Judge hit the ball well tonight, but not out of the ballpark. Yankees hit the ballpark out of the

06:20ballpark once today. That's the only run they got. They had Crochet in trouble in the first inning.

06:25They got first and second, no out, no big hit. They had Chapman in trouble in the ninth inning,

06:30three straight singles, and they don't score another run. The Yankees are so addicted. The ball either

06:36goes over the fence or they have trouble scoring. And so they better get some home runs against Brian

06:43Baio. And, you know, they may be the weaker part of the Red Sox bullpen, which perhaps will be in the

06:49games on Wednesday and if necessary, Thursday. But again, now we're throwing open the bullpen

06:56question. Weaver didn't throw well. Clearly after this game, Jazz Chisholm, who's a very engaging guy

07:02with reporters, did an interview with his back two reporters where he mumbled and he kind of said,

07:08well, manager's decision, doing what he thinks to win a game. He clearly was annoyed that he was not

07:13starting. Seemed an interesting time to kind of do this passive aggressive protest against Aaron Boone.

07:21But now this is part of a storyline as well. The Yankees could still pull this out, but this is not

07:29what they've done at this time of year under this administration. And this either changes or we're

07:37going to be having the Aaron Boone discussion again in 24 to 48 hours.

Aaron Boone's 'preprogrammed' mindset could doom the Yankees postseason | presented by The Show

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