The New York Yankees were booed by their fans on Sunday, but manager Aaron Boone isn’t succumbing to the negativity.
Following a 7-1 loss to the Houston Astros, a game in which Boone was ejected in the third inning for arguing a called strike on Ryan McMahon, Boone addressed the state of his club.
The Yankees have lost seven of nine and entered Monday with a 62-56 record, 6.5 games back of the American League East-leading Toronto Blue Jays and just a half-game ahead of the Cleveland Guardians for the third wild card spot.
Boone reminded the media that his team is still alive.
“The game is littered with dead and buried teams,” Boone said, per The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner. “We’re in playoff position right now. We’ve been through two bad months where we haven’t performed at a level we need to. Go back the year before, the year before, you can pick out a number of teams that are sitting in a worse position than we are right now that go on a run. We have the people to do that, no doubt in my mind.”
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“We haven’t been good enough the last two months,” Boone continued. “This is different than ’23 where I didn’t think we were necessarily capable of that run that we needed to really get hot. We were out of it at that point. This is different. We’re in a position right now where we’re in control of things. We’re in a playoff spot, technically. I believe we have the people to get it done. We got to play consistent baseball, period.”
That consistently must start with New York’s best players. Yankees ace Max Fried lost for the third time in four starts on Sunday, allowing four runs and eight hits in five innings of work. Fried is now 12-5 on the season.
The Yankees begin a home series with the Minnesota Twins on Monday. Will Warren is scheduled to take the mound for New York against Zebby Matthews.
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