A baseball manager is not a head football coach. He can’t treat an MLB loss on Sunday in April like an NFL loss on Sunday in September, not when he has to lead his team on a grueling 162-game journey not best served by the dramatic mood swings that characterize professional football. .
The adjustments aren’t that extreme, and the reprimands aren’t that explosive. But right now, with the Tampa Bay series sweep leaving his Yankees at 5-10, Aaron Boone is starting to look like one of those lovely NFL coaches whose teams rarely seem ready to play.
Why did the image of Pat Shurmur just flash through my mind?
We’ll quickly move on to the necessary disclaimers in your prototypical early-season negative baseball class: Boone’s 2019 Yankees started 6-9 and finished with 103 wins. The manager did put together back-back seasons with more than 100 wins. Boone has not only proven that he knows what he is doing, and that he can handle New York’s rougher sides with relative ease, he has also proven that his form of leadership makes room for the human touch that Brian Cashman wanted in Joe Girardi’s replacement. . Exhibit A: Boone supports Aaron Hicks’ decision to play a game after another police shoot an unarmed black man in Minnesota.
Oh yeah, and the former third baseman was resilient enough to hit one of the biggest home runs in Yankee Stadium history.
But all that matters today is that there are 29 other teams in baseball in the Major League, and the Yankees have a worse track record than 28 of them. Despite a payroll of about $ 134 million that is thicker than Tampa Bay’s, the Yankees have allowed the Rays to live permanently in their minds of the big markets. The Rays have made six consecutive series from the Yanks, winning 15 of their last 18 regular season rallies, and eight of their last nine at The Bronx. When they meet again in the post-season, a year after the Yanks bounce back from the ALDS, the Rays will feel nearly invincible walking into that series.
Kevin Cash will certainly feel like he owns the not-so-elusive lead in the dugout.
Boone couldn’t even be saved by his $ 324 million ace in the hole, Gerrit Cole, whose 10 strikeouts in 6 ¹ / ₃ innings earned him 39 for the year, more than any Yankee ever after four starts. Cole was Cole, and yet that wasn’t good enough to keep his team from losing the fifth in a row.
Boone even got a pregame assist from Jay Bruce, who suddenly announced his retirement and let everyone in the building – the players, the manager, the media – talk about another nice guy with a track record at the game. In other words, talk about something other than just the goddamn state of Bruce’s last team.
That didn’t help either. The Yankees came 23rd in the majors in on-base percentage, 24th in runs, 25th overall and 28th in OPS, and they responded with a total of two runs on three hits in the 4-2 loss. “When we get a throw to hammer,” Boone said, “take advantage of it. … And we don’t do that enough right now. “
Even worse, the Yankees’ amateur hour play in the outfield did nothing to support the idea that Boone’s team was mentally prepared to compete at the highest level. Hicks, the veteran golfer, committed a double bogey on one game and a bogey on the other, costing his starting pitcher, while Clint Frazier once inexplicably threw the ball to Cole instead of to second base. That’s why most of the 10,606 fans in the stands booed loudly after the final out was made. Not only were they unhappy with the loss, but also with the way the home team behaved during the loss.
“We’re getting slapped in the mouth now,” Boone said. He has a day off on Monday to find out how to convince his players to hit back.
Boone said he will consider “shaking things up”. The most obvious move is to get Hicks out of the three holes, no matter what the analytics say to keep him there. His 0-for-4 lowered his batting average to .160 and his OBP to .236, and the numbers – coupled with his defensive collapses – have earned the relegation.
But if Boone decides to keep his lineup intact and only play back for Bruce’s inspirational words from his team about what it meant to wear the pinstripes (however short), he should turn to videotape.
Regardless, Boone needs to understand that this horror movie from scratch isn’t all about Yanks’ stumbling, bumbling stars.
This is very important to the guy who paid to make sure those stars honor their bills.