Aaron Boone has a lot of explaining to do after not using Clay Holmes in Game 3

CLEVELAND — Call it the perils of the profession.

Any move made — or not made — by a manager in the postseason often follows him the rest of his career and even well into retirement.

Grady Little will always be primarily known as the Red Sox manager who left  Pedro Martinez in far too long in Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series. John McNamara never lived down his call to keep a hobbled Bill Buckner in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series rather than go with his usual late-inning defensive replacement, Dave Stapleton.  

Joe Girardi had one such situation, though not nearly as high profile, in his final season as Yankees manager when he failed to challenge a hit by pitch on Lonnie Chisenhall during Game 2 of the 2017 ALDS, which preceded a grand slam by Francisco Lindor that led to a comeback victory by Cleveland in extra innings. Trailing 2-0 in the series, the Yankees then won three straight to capture that series before losing to the Astros in a seven-game ALCS.

(Girardi’s mistake — which caused him a day later to say “I screwed up” — did not contribute to his contract not being renewed as the organization essentially had reached that decision by the end of that regular season.)

Aaron Boone, viewed skeptically by the Yankees' fan base almost from the time he was hired to replace Girardi before the 2018 season, had his turn in that unwanted spotlight after his team coughed up a two-run lead in the ninth inning of ALDS Game 3 on Saturday night and suffered a 6-5 walk-off loss on  a two-out, two-run single by Oscar Gonzalez.

The move was replacing a tiring Wandy Peralta — with runners at the corners and one out in a 5-3 game — with righthander Clarke Schmidt rather than Clay Holmes. Schmidt, who was solid this season in posting a 3.12 ERA in 29 games, allowed an RBI single by Amed Rosario to make it 5-4 and an infield single by Jose Ramirez that loaded the bases. After striking out Josh Naylor on three pitches, Schmidt threw four straight sliders to Gonzalez, who drilled the final one — not a bad pitch, as it was low and slightly away but not far away enough  — back up the middle for the game-winner.

The postgame question, asked by some players in the clubhouse as well as by the media, was why not Holmes?

Boone said he preferred to stay away from Holmes, who spent the last part of the regular season on the injured list with a shoulder strain and had appeared in the first two games of this series. Boone said only an “emergency situation” would have caused him to go to Holmes, who threw 10 pitches in Game 1 and, after an off-day Wednesday and a rainout Thursday, 16 more in Game 2 on Friday.

That he was considered in the in-case-of-emergency-break-glass category appeared to be news to Holmes, who spent the first half of the season as one of the top relievers in either league but struggled at times in the second half and wasn’t completely cleared of the shoulder issue for the playoffs until the eve of Game 1 of the ALDS.  

“I think just that I didn't tell him he was down,” Boone said before Game 4, acknowledging a breakdown in communication from his end. “And I didn't want to tell him he was down because he was certainly an emergency option, and I was leaving some things open throughout the day that would have put him in play for me. In the end, just had a tough call on it.”

Boone said part of the hesitation was Holmes saying he felt some soreness after Game 2, though his interpretation was that it was more the typical soreness a pitcher feels at this time of year after an outing instead of something that raised any “red flags.”

Still, “I put him out there, he injures himself, that's a tough thing to live with,” Boone said Sunday. “Or I put a guy out there that I think is compromised and doesn't perform at [a high] level, and then we're in an even worse situation today.''

The Yankees needed a Herculean effort Sunday night from Gerrit Cole, who already had beaten the Guardians three times this season, including in Game 1 of this series, to force a deciding Game 5 on Monday night at the Stadium.

A side note is questioning how much of the decision actually was Boone’s. Among the worst-kept secrets in the sport is the Yankees' nearly 100% adherence to analytics and the opinions and strategies of those running that powerful department, one of the largest in the sport.

Regardless, the move caused its share of head-scratching.

“He’s our closer, so of course I was surprised,” Luis Severino — the Yankees' hard-nosed bulldog of a starter who is among the clubhouse leaders — said of not seeing Holmes. “But I don’t know if he was down. I don’t know if there should be people down in the playoffs, so that’s something you guys need ask Boonie or [pitching coach Matt] Blake to see what was going on there. But I was surprised not seeing him.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

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.