YOU DON'T PLAY GAME 4 BEFORE GAME 3 IS WON

I'll put this as straight forward for you as I can be. When your own players go to the press and question a manager's decision to win a baseball game, you have lost control as the manager. It means your own players do not trust you with juggling hard decisions in an important series.

This speaks volumes.

Aaron Boone has had a historic problem juggling pitching personnel. It's always been his issue and it's because of this that we are typically close, but short in the playoffs during his time as Yankee manager.

Some Yankee loyalists can't understand why Aaron Boone lost last night's Yankee game. They are loyal to Boone, the machine, and they love to rather point fingers at Brian Cashman or the players. But players are in games because of a manager's decision and in last night's game, we are able to reveal Boone's weakness. He is in over his head when it comes to MUST WINS and Checkers, not Chess.  

Look, I can see when angry fans point fingers at Cashman at times.  But here's the thing; We made it to the playoffs with the guys we had because they had a pretty good run. Cashman brought them in. No, the Yankees didn't end as well as they started, but they did damn good.  You have to applaud that. Players Cashman picked did the job.  But then there's injury sometimes and that was a big issue for us.  You can't blame injury on Cashman or Boone. That's life, that's the game.

But back to Boone for a moment. It's during tough times that a manager must earn his paycheck. Boone is a guy with a small mind when it comes to hard decisions. When these important series show up, Boone plays the game ahead of the game he's currently in.  He thinks ahead without finishing off the opponent we are currently playing.  Last night was a perfect example of this. And it's bigger than that. Aaron Boone knew he was responsible for last night's loss.  But tried his best to skirt the truth to the press, and not be honest to the fans.  Watch his entire presser last night. What he should have done at the very top was say this:

"Listen, before we get into this, I am the manager and this loss is on me, here's why..." and went into detail about bad decisions.  We would have all been in a better place today. Instead, the entire east coast news circuit is calling for his head.

   

Listen to that first question. That questions are direct. The press is looking for answers because we all saw what was happening and no one could understand it. Listen to the questions, listen closely to his answers. He skirts, he dodges, he does NOT take blame. But most importantly, HE WAS SETTING THE YANKEES ROTATION AND BULLPEN UP FOR GAME 4. And he wasn't even finished with Game 3.

QUESTION: Did you have Clay Holmes available?

BOONE: NO. He was available but we would have put him in a tough situation.

Hmm. Weird. Clay thought he was going in last night. Luis Severino was confused why Clay wasn't in. Jack Curry of YES was "baffled" that Clay wasn't in there.

Luis Severino on Clay Holmes not pitching the 9th:

"He's our closer. So of course I was surprised. I don't know if he was down. There shouldn't be people down in the playoffs. That's something you guys need to ask Boone or [Matt] Blake to see what was going on there."

— Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) October 16, 2022

Clay Holmes said he was surprised that he was not used tonight. He said his arm is fine. Woke up today anticipating he was going to be on the mound tonight.

— Chris Kirschner (@ChrisKirschner) October 16, 2022

Wow. That's interesting. What's the tough situation though? Well, it's when there are men on base and the other team is chipping away.  

But that's ok, Clay was "sore", and they didn't want him to blow it. So, what did Boone decide... or should I say what did Boone and Matt Blake decide? They decided to bring in Clarke Schmidt, a guy that fell out of favor with the organization this year alittle bit. A guy that had a ton of potential, but then just fell off, and dare I say, wasn't prepared for this big moment. 

Here's the best part. The press challenged Boone with not throwing Holmes.

"He threw just 16 pitches the day before."

Sixteen pitches. This about that. Hardly a workload.

Boone's answer?  He didn't want to put Clay Holmes in a back-to-back situation.  Ridiculous. Guys like Goose Gossage and Dennis Eckersley are laughing their asses off right now. Boone is JV.

Boone goes on and says it needed to be "an emergency situation".  What defines "emergency" Boonie? Guardians had a couple guys on and Peralta was pulled and you're up by only 2 runs. The next guy up could homer and win right there. ISN'T THAT AN EMERGENCY? It is. You know how I know? Because every analyst out there could see it as well as every fan.

Boone goes on to say that he loves Cole's chances tonight, and we need to get back to New York.  

And say we do win and get back to New York Boone... Yankee Stadium is heaven to many of us, but it's not bulletproofed. We lose there too.  Sure, having Cortes on the mound at Yankee Stadium is perfect for me and many fans, but none of us really have any faith that you can pull it off as manager.  Let's remember something folks, the Guardians were pushovers a few days ago. Today they have the upper hand, all because Aaron Boone is a clown.

I love my Yankees. I want them to get to the next round of the playoffs, but bad leadership never wins if they don't know what they're doing.  Boone made a terrible decision last night and we all paid the price. The Yankees did what they needed to do to win.  You un-did that, Boone.  You better show up with some smarter decisions. Us fans, your players deserve it.

 Clowns should not be allowed to run teams.