Yankees manager Aaron Boone not upset by criticism from Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez
Yankees manager Aaron Boone looks on during the seventh inning of a game against the Miami Marlins on Saturday in Miami. Credit: AP/Jim Rassol
MIAMI — Aaron Boone didn’t make too much of the criticisms leveled by two former Yankees greats on Saturday.
During Fox’s pregame show before the Speedway Classic between Atlanta and Cincinnati in Bristol, Tennessee — a game postponed until Sunday afternoon because of rain — panelists Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez took their cuts at the Yankees for their continued sloppy play.
The jumping-off point was a baserunning blunder by Jazz Chisholm Jr., who was doubled off first base on a pop-up to second to end the second inning in Saturday’s 2-0 loss to the Marlins.
“Where’s the accountability?” said Rodriguez, who was joined on the panel by Jeter and David Ortiz, the latter two Hall of Famers. “If any one of us made [that] mistake, we would be sitting our butt right on the bench. I see mistake after mistake, and there’s no consequences.”
Said Jeter: “They make way too many mistakes, and you can’t get away with making that number of mistakes against great teams. It just doesn’t happen. They had baserunning mistakes today — you saw the guy [Trent Grisham] getting thrown out at home plate. You can’t continue to do it. You have to clean it up.”
Asked about the comments before Sunday’s 7-3 loss to the Marlins, Boone didn’t seem to take great offense, though he offered some pushback.
“Look, we’re the Yankees, and when we lose games, if it’s in and around a mistake, that criticism is fair game,” he said. “But at the end of the day, again, like I’ve said, we have the pieces to be a really good team, and that’s on me and all of us to get the most out of that.
“I would disagree a little bit with the accountability factor, but the reality is we’re focused every day on being the best we can be.”
Why specifically did he disagree with A-Rod’s comment about a lack of accountability?
“I’m not going to get into that publicly and break down every single thing,” Boone said. “The reality is I think we should be better than what our record is and that starts with me and we’ve got to own that. And the only way we can change that thought is by playing a more consistent brand of baseball and win baseball games. That’s the only way to do it.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
More Yankees headlines
