
NEW YORK ā There were a handful of decisions that Aaron Boone made on Tuesday, in the Yankeesā Game 1 loss to the Red Sox, that proved to be costly.
Asked on Wednesday, before Game 2 of the Wild Card Series against Boston, what he regrets most, the manager picked a late-game defensive substitution.
It was the decision to pull Amed Rosario and bring Jazz Chisholm Jr. in at second base in the eighth inning that didnāt sit right with him.
āShould I have kept Rosario in,ā Boone said. āThat was the one knowing we were down at that point.ā
Chisholm came in as a defensive sub with the Yankees trailing. He then had to face lefty closer Aroldis Chapman with the game on the line one inning later. Chisholm flew out to shallow right field, the second of three at-bats in a row where the Yankees stranded the bases loaded, falling short in crushing fashion.
That move from Boone, to prioritize run prevention when his team was losing, went against his decision to prioritize run production in his starting lineup. Boone chose to pencil Rosario into the starting lineup over Chisholm because he wanted a platoon advantage over Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet. He used the same logic with Paul Goldschmidt starting at first over Ben Rice and JosĆ© Caballero playing at third over Ryan McMahon. Chisholm wasnāt thrilled with that decision, to say the least, but Rosario had good numbers in his career against the left-hander entering play on Tuesday, so that move made sense.
Booneās justification for bringing Chisholm in was rooted in Boston beginning to bring their left-handed hitters off the bench.
āItās a very fair question,ā Boone said. āThat is the challenge. The inning before, the ball was starting to go over there and just the range, knowing some more lefties are going to be back in the lineup at that point with their righties in the game. But a fair point.ā
Like his numbers against Crochet, Rosario has been effective against Chapman in his career. He even hit a walk-off home run off Chapman when he was on the Mets ā in a game at Yankee Stadium ā during the pandemic-shortened season in 2020. Everybody in the Yankeesā dugout knew Chapman was going to be used since it was a save situation for Boston and Booneās swap prevented Rosario from having that chance against him.
Thatās a wave of retrospective accountability from Boone, but itās not what Yankees fans want to hear. They were particularly pissed with Booneās decision to pull ace Max Fried with one out in the seventh inning while the Yankees were still leading 1-0. Luke Weaver entered from the bullpen and three batters later, Boston had a 2-1 lead.
On the other side, Red Sox manager Alex Cora stuck with Crochet deeper into the game, even as his pitch count climbed up to 117. Fried was at 102 when Boone went out to pull him in the seventh.
Booneās choice to leave Goldschmidt in at first base in the ninth inning ā rather than pinch-running with speedster Jasson DomĆnguez ā was another move under a microscope on Tuesday night.
The manager was also asked about that decision, defending it by saying he didnāt want to burn his one pinch-running option in a two-run game. He was prepared to use DomĆnguez off the bench if Giancarlo Stanton got on base.
āHad it been a 2-1 game, then I would have run for Goldschmidt,ā Boone said.
Thatās fair, but speed for Goldschmidt still couldāve mattered, even in a two-run game. Goldschmidt stayed at third on Chisholmās shallow fly ball to right with one out. Had it been DomĆnguez running from third, thereās a good chance he wouldāve scored to cut the Yankeesā deficit to one run. Aaron Judge couldāve advanced from second base to third base on a possible throw to home plate there too, putting the tying run 90 feet away with two outs.
Regardless, it was the Rosario-Chisholm sequence that Boone was second-guessing one day later. Unless the Yankees are able to win two games in a row, starting Wednesday night in Game 2 against the Red Sox, heāll have plenty of time in October to look back and rethink those moves from home.
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