Aaron Boone pushes wrong buttons on day when Yankees were missing key players
New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Everywhere you looked Sunday at Yankee Stadium, there were clues to the Yankees’ eventual demise in a 7-5 loss to the Rays.
Giancarlo Stanton, on the shelf since spring training, appeared only in bobblehead form, dressed as a Jedi for the Star Wars Day promo giveaway.
Gerrit Cole, rehabbing from season-ending Tommy John surgery, donned pinstripes for his first dugout cameo, though he has yet to address the media since having his $324 million right UCL repaired.
No Anthony Volpe, as the Gold Glove shortstop was taking the afternoon to recover from his shoulder-popping dive a day earlier. And no Jazz Chisholm Jr., who is out for the next month or more because of not one, not two, but three small oblique tears.
But those account only for the Yankees with doctor’s notes. Harder to explain is why with all of these holes, and going with a Volpe-less shorthanded roster for the series finale against a pesky division rival, manager Aaron Boone still chose to sit two of his most dangerous bats in Ben Rice and Austin Wells.
Yes, a Sunday matinee is typically the standard spot in the schedule to give guys a breather, especially the catchers. But this occasion felt like a good time to buck that trend, as the Yankees were starting Will Warren, the owner of a 5.63 ERA.
Still, over a long season, you won’t see the Yankees ignore their load-management police, and they didn’t Sunday, moving Aaron Judge to DH, which took Rice out of the equation, and going with J.C. Escarra behind the plate. Those worrisome gaps in the batting order were the root of the Yankees’ problems, but the infield alignment minus Volpe also was costly, as was Boone’s curious use of his short bench when one swing could have flipped the outcome in the eighth inning.
So let’s start at the finish, or what amounted to the Yankees’ last real chance to erase the day’s earlier blunders. That came during a wild eighth, when Judge’s leadoff double ignited a string of three hits and a walk, bringing the tying run to the plate with the bases loaded and none out.
The question? Who would that tying run be? The lineup said Escarra, the .192-hitting backup catcher. Common sense, however, dictated it should be either Wells or Rice, two excellent options just sitting there on the bench.
But Boone chose neither one. He stuck with Escarra, who promptly tapped a second-pitch changeup right back to the mound for a room-service 1-2-3 double play.
When asked about the decision, Boone didn’t provide much clarity.
“I’m choosing between Escarra and [Jorbit] Vivas there, and just going to take the guy that’s been here and more experienced,” said Boone, who was weighing which one to hit for — then picked neither. “So I knew I had one shot with Rice there. Then once the double play happened, that kind of shut that down a little bit. Then he was the tying run again there with [Oswaldo Cabrera].”
Rather than dissect that part just yet, here’s how the rest of Boone’s frame unfolded. Next up was Vivas — who first entered as a pinch hitter in the seventh for Pablo Reyes — and he smoked a two-run single that cut the Yankees’ deficit to 7-5. Boone then went with Rice to hit for Cabrera — hence the need for Escarra at third — and the subsequent walk left the tying runs on for No. 9 hitter Oswald Peraza, who grounded out to kill the rally.
Suffice to say, this was not exactly a comeback strategy, considering who Boone had on his bench. Given that Escarra was coming up with nobody out, Boone figured he had more leeway with that spot and could wait on the big guns, as he mentioned. But that plan backfired terribly, and even though Vivas kept him alive with a big hit, the rally blew up in Boone’s face.
It looked even worse when the manager had to burn two players anyway, because Rice was replaced by Wells, who moved behind the plate as Escarra took over for Cabrera at third. Complicating matters was the shaky physical status of Volpe, whom Boone didn’t want to use unless the Yankees took the lead, because they were unsure of his ability to swing a bat after Saturday’s shoulder injury.
“If we got ahead in the game and we needed him for defense or running, we probably would’ve done it,” Boone said. “But we were pretty disciplined in wanting to stay away from him [Sunday].”
Volpe was missed — and not just because of that eighth inning. His replacement at shortstop, Peraza, fumbled away a grounder for an error that led to the Rays’ first run and later — after a nifty diving stop behind second base — comically spiked a throw off the mound when he tried to gun down another runner at the plate.
All day, it seemed, the Rays were punching grounder after grounder through holes in the infield. Tampa Bay had 16 hits and, incredibly, stranded 16 runners. As much as third base has been a concern for the Yankees, try playing for an extended period without Volpe and Chisholm. Sunday provided a preview, and it wasn’t pretty.
“They kind of hit the ball where we weren’t,” a frustrated Warren said.
Bottom line, there were way too many Yankees missing Sunday, or just not in the right places at the right time.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
