Aaron Boone's Theatrics Didn't Help the Yankees

No doubt in my mind on this one, the Yankees lost to a better team as the Orioles took two of three at the stadium. Another reminder, especially to the new subscribers, if you’re not receiving the newsletter in your inbox on some some days, check other folders such as spam, junk, or promotions. If you miss one, always check in those places. Have a great weekend.

I’m not saying that Aaron Boone didn’t have a very good reason to be infuriated with home plate umpire Edwin Moscoso because the guy was horrible Thursday night, particularly when it came to his refusal to give Clarke Schmidt the outside corner. It was ridiculous and whatever spittle Boone sprayed in Moscoso’s face during the tirade was deserved.

Still, Boone coming out of the dugout and screaming bloody murder, purposely getting thrown out of games, has become a bit tedious. This was his second ejection in the last four games, the fourth this season, and the 30th since he became manager in 2018.

Boone said after the game that he initially came out calmly to make his point to Moscoso that the umpire was redefining how to suck at his job and that he didn’t need to be restrained by crew chief Chris Guccione. “Nothing bad was gonna happen,” Boone said. It was only when Moscoso acted like a prick and walked away that Boone became enraged and that’s when he really went after the guy.

Nonetheless, I don’t understand what purpose this serves because he knows damn well that the calls aren’t being changed, and he also has to know that these umpires aren’t going to all of a sudden change their interpretation of their particular strike zone.

It’s a maddening part of baseball, the inconsistency of the strike zone from game to game depending on who’s back there arbiting, and it’s been going on for 150-plus years.

But when he was asked if he would be in favor of the automatic strike zone if it gets implemented down the road, Boone was adamant. “I don’t want that,” Boone said. “These guys do, for the most part, a really good job and work hard at it.” I’m glad he said that because I don’t want the automatic ump either.

I say that even though I’ve been to Triple-A games in Rochester where the automatic strike zone is being used half the time, and it works seamlessly. The call is as instantaneous as if the umpire was actually making it, but I’m fine with leaving the balls and strikes to the humans behind the plate. I don’t know why I feel that way, but I do.

Of course, the easy joke here is that we should wish Boone would get thrown out of more games so we aren’t subjected to some of his bumbling bullpen decisions.

OK, now on to the important stuff. The Yankees blew this series. After a nice comeback win in the opener, they pissed away the second game and then they were utterly horrible in the finale. So now we know for sure that at least two AL East teams are significantly better than the Yankees, the Rays and the Orioles. This Baltimore team is for real, and they proved it.

➤ Tuesday wasn’t a great start for Gerrit Cole, but he did reach a personal milestone by recording his 2,000th career strikeout. He became the third-fastest pitcher in MLB history to get there (278 games) behind only Randy Johnson (262) and Clayton Kershaw (277).

➤ The dramatic home run Aaron Judge hit Tuesday was his 38th against Baltimore since 2017, the most by a major leaguer vs. a single opponent over that span.

➤ Before Wednesday’s meltdown, the Yankees bullpen had a streak of 22.1 scoreless innings which looks great on the surface, but that’s only in reference to runs charged to them. I pay attention to inherited runners that relievers allow to score and since May 13 against the Rays, 60% of the runners the bullpen has inherited have scored, a total of 17 runs, the bulk of those ultimately charged to the starter who was pulled with men on base. That’s not great. For the season 41% of inherited runners have scored. By comparison, the Orioles bullpen has allowed 31% of inherited runners to score.

➤ On the injury front, Boone said Giancarlo Stanton might go on a rehab start next week. Yes, and I might lose 20 pounds by next week. And Josh Donaldson has started an assignment in Scranton and is getting close to a return. Again, we’ll see, not that I’m in any hurry for Donaldson to return.

Here are my observations on the three games against the Orioles.

May 23: Yankees 6, Orioles 5 (10)

➤ Judge is on a heater of epic proportions, though he did cool off in the final two games. His home run to tie this game in the bottom of the ninth was truly special, considering the situation and the pitcher he took deep. Baltimore closer Felix Bautista might be the best in the game right now. Before the Judge homer, he had pitched in 22 games and his ERA was 1.17 with 45 strikeouts in 23 innings, basically two per inning. Opponents had a .491 OPS against him. “That’s not good-looking odds there,” Boone said after the game. No, but Bautista helped the odds because he made an awful mistake going away from his 100 mph fastball and throwing a slider which Judge crushed to left.

➤ Good for Anthony Volpe coming through with the walk-off sacrifice fly in the 10th because how many times have we seen the Yankees fail to get the runner in from third with less than two outs? Yeah, plenty. Harrison Bader moved the automatic runner from second to third with a groundout, and Volpe did what he needed to do - put the ball in play to the outfield. Nice when it works out like that. Bader was great in this game as he made another terrific catch, plus homered in the fourth and hit a sacrifice fly in the three-run fifth that tied the game at 4-4.

➤ The Yankees were down 4-0 which made the win even more impressive. They were down because Cole once again was not very good. He gave up two more home runs and that’s six in his last four starts, during which his ERA is 5.14, so his gopher ball problem from last season seems to be re-emerging. In the first inning he got the Orioles very tough first two hitters out, Cedric Mullins and Adley Rutschman, but then he walked the next two and pesky Adam Frazier hit a rope to right that went off Judge’s glove for two runs. Later, Cole gave up solo bombs to Mullins and Gunnar Henderson.

➤ Great job by Michael King. He came in for the ninth despite a 5-4 deficit, but it was the right call because Boone knew he needed to keep the score right there with the top of the Yankee batting order due up. King did, and then after Judge tied it, Boone left King in for the 10th which was also huge as he stranded the automatic runner at second with two strikeouts and a lineout to Volpe who made a run-saving grab.

➤ The DJ LeMahieu failed bunt in the seventh was just awful. I hate bunts 99.9% of the time as it is, and I really hated this one. The Yankees had first and third with one out and Torres was the man on third, not exactly a speed burner. Terrible decision by LeMahieu, compounded by a bad bunt and then a bad read by Torres who was an easy out at the plate. Glad that didn’t come back to bite them.

BOX SCORE

May 24: Orioles 9, Yankees 6

➤ Well, I guess this evened things out. The Orioles blew a four-run lead and lost the opener, and the Yankees did the same in this one, only they did it in more calamitous fashion. It was 5-1 and things were all good through six innings, but Boone once again showed no feel for a game and it ultimately led to a disastrous eight-run seventh inning for the Orioles.

➤ Nestor Cortes was outstanding for six innings, just one run and three hits allowed. But he has been terrible all year when he gets to the third time through the batting order and that bit him in this one. Boone let him pitch the sixth with the top of the order coming back around and I was fine with that in this situation because the Yankees were up 5-1 and he was trying to steal some outs for the bullpen. And in between a one-out single by Rutschman, Cortes whiffed Mullins and Ryan Mountcastle to end the sixth. He was at 80 pitches, and because of that I was also OK with Boone allowing him to start the seventh, hoping he could steal a few more outs on a batter to batter basis.

➤ But here is where Boone’s dummy warning siren didn’t go off. The moment Cortes walked Anthony Santander to start the seventh, he should have been out of the game. Right there, end of story, nice job Nestor, go hit the showers. Instead, Boone left him in and Austin Hays singled, so again, he should have been out. Instead, with lefty-swinging Frazier up, Boone stayed in the dugout blowing bubbles and Frazier hit a three-run homer off the right-field foul pole. Now it was 5-4, and only then did Boone pull Cortes, two batters and three runs too late.

➤ Boone said after the game he had planned to end Cortes’ night after Frazier’s at-bat regardless of how the inning unfolded. This is exactly what I’m talking about with Boone. Why does he have to stick to the script? Frazier was the third batter in the inning and Boone apparently didn’t care that the first two guys reached base because he had it pre-ordained that he was sticking with Cortes. How did that work out? It’s just maddening with this guy.

➤ From there, it was a complete shit show that had nothing to do with Boone. His relievers, who have been good lately, were horrible. Jimmy Cordero and Albert Abreu combined to allow five more runs on five hits, a walk, a passed ball, and two Yankee throwing errors by Judge and Bader, easily the worst half-inning of the season.

➤ The Yankees had a chance to get right back into it in the bottom of the seventh, but the same problem that so often plagues them, hitting with runners in scoring position, killed them. They loaded the bases and Anthony Rizzo - who was otherwise pathetic with four strikeouts - looped an RBI single to left. But then LeMahieu and Bader failed to come through and the rally died with the deficit at 9-6 and the Yankees went down meekly in the last two innings.

➤ Wasted in the loss was a two-homer game by Torres, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s two-run homer.

BOX SCORE

May 25: Orioles 3, Yankees 1

➤ Schmidt got screwed in this game. First by Volpe who booted a routine grounder in the top of the first that should have ended an easy 1-2-3 inning. And yes, that was an error every day of the week but once again, official scoring in MLB is off the rails horrible. Somehow, Santander was awarded a hit on a play any shortstop should make. That play, and Moscoso’s inability to differentiate balls from strikes, forced Schmidt to throw 17 extra pitches before he got out of a bases-loaded jam. “Clearly, he shouldn’t have had to throw almost 30 pitches in that first inning,” Boone said.

➤ Of course, Schmidt being Schmidt, he later got into trouble in the third and fifth innings, in both cases after two men were out, and it finally burned him in the fifth when he gave up Santander’s RBI single that broke a scoreless game. He was only able to go five innings because his pitch count was at 97.

➤ From there, two of the best bullpen arms failed. Wandy Peralta walked two men in the eighth so Clay Holmes came in and he promptly allowed both men to score on a double by Hays that put the game out of reach. Again, inherited runners scoring, and that proved pretty costly at the end when the Yankees briefly emerged from their coma in the ninth.

➤ The Yankees have beaten the shit out of Kyle Gibson his entire career, but not in this one. They were futile against him - no runs on two hits and four walks through seven innings. It was such a listless performance until the bottom of the ninth when they shockingly scored off Yennier Cano who came into the game with a 0.35 ERA. Judge walked and scored on a double by Willie Calhoun.

➤ How about the pitchers dropping throws to first base? Nick Ramirez and Cordero each dropped one and surprise, surprise, they were properly given errors by the official scorer. They were lucky that in both cases because the Yankees turned double plays right after to bail them out.

BOX SCORE

➤ May 26, 2006: This should have been a night to celebrate, not that Derek Jeter would have been all that interested because he never cared much for feting his own achievements unless it had something to do with the Yankees popping champagne corks in their clubhouse after the five World Series they won with him as their shortstop.

But the more than 48,000 fans who showed up on a Friday night at Yankee Stadium - and waited out a nearly two-hour rain delay - hoped they could celebrate the occasion of Jeter’s 2,000th career hit, a plateau only seven other Yankees had reached.

When it happened in the fourth inning against the sad sack Kansas City Royals, it certainly wasn’t as dramatic as the home run he would hit off Tampa Bay’s David Price on July 9, 2011 for his 3,000th hit which was part of a 5-for-5 afternoon, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some drama.

Jeter topped a dribbler up the third-base line off Scott Elarton and took off for first base. Catcher Paul Bako raced out from behind the plate to field the ball, then hurriedly tried to throw Jeter out but instead threw it away and Jeter took off for second as the crowd roared. But wait, first, the official scorer had to decide whether to award Jeter an infield single and give Bako an error for allowing him to get to second, or charge Bake with a two-base error. It took a minute as Jeter stood at second, but when the H went up on the scoreboard, the place erupted.

In the crowd, Jeter’s mother, Dorothy, was seen on camera turning to her husband, Charles, mouthing “Error.” Jeter was asked about that and he said, “Yeah, I saw that. Good thing she wasn’t scoring, I guess, huh?”

Jeter patiently answered questions, but more important to him was the fact that the Yankees found a way to lose the game 7-6 when Kansas City’s No. 8 hitter, Angel Berroa, ripped a two-out, three-run homer off Kyle Farnworth in the eighth which enabled the Royals to snap a 13-game losing streak, winning for just the 11th time in 46 games to that point in 2006.

The hard to figure San Diego Padres come to Yankee Stadium for three games. This is one of the most talented teams in MLB, yet somehow it is 23-27 and in fourth place in the NL West, 7.5 games behind the Dodgers. It’s truly perplexing.

The Padres just won a series over the putrid Nationals when, after splitting the first two games, they were down to their last out Thursday before old friend Rougned Odor hit a three-run, game-winning homer.

Manny Machado has been out a little while and isn’t likely to return for this series, but this is a team that still has Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., Nelson Cruz, and Xander Bogaerts in the lineup, and yet it ranks 25th in runs scored, 29th in average (.224), and 21st in OPS (7.03).

And it has a rotation with Yu Darvish, Michael Wacha, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove, and a dominant closer in Josh Hader, yet they’re four games under .500. Hopefully, that dramatic win in Washington won’t be the start of a resurgence just in time with the Yankees up next.

The pitching matchups look like this: Friday, 7:05 p.m. on Apple-TV, the Yankees have called up Randy Vasquez to fill the spot vacated by the idiot, Domingo German. He’ll go against Musgrove (6.75 ERA); Saturday at 1:05 p.m. on YES it’s Luis Severino (1.93) looking to build on his season debut last week against Wacha (3.58). And Sunday, 1:35 on YES it’s Cole (2.53) against Darvish (3.67).