A baseball manager is not a head football coach. He can not treat an MLB Sunday loss in April like an NFL Sunday loss in September, not when he has to lead his team on a grueling journey of 162 games not best served by the dramatic mood that defines pro football not.
The adjustments are not as extreme, and the reprimands are not as explosive. But right now, with Tampa Bay’s series numbers leaving its Yankees at 5-10, Aaron Boone is starting to look like one of the nice NFL coaches whose teams rarely seem ready to play.
Why did the image of Pat Shurmur just flash through my mind?
We quickly move on to the necessary indemnity in your prototypical negative baseball column in the early season: Boone’s 2019 Yankees started 6-9 and finished with 103 wins. The manager did compile back-to-back seasons of 100-plus wins. Not only has Boone proved that he knows what he’s doing, and that he can handle New York’s rougher sides relatively easily, but also that his form of leadership makes room for the human onslaught that Brian Cashman wanted in Joe Girardi’s replacement. Exhibit A: Boone’s support for Aaron Hicks’ decision to hold a match after another police shooting of an unarmed black man in Minnesota.
Oh yeah, and the former third man was resilient enough to win one of the greatest home games in Yankee Stadium history.
But all that matters today is that there are 29 other teams in baseball in the league, and the Yankees have a worse record than 28 of them. Despite a salary of about $ 134 million fatter than that of Tampa Bay, the Yankees allowed the Rays to take up permanent residence in their major market leaders. The Rays have picked up six live series from the Yanks and won 15 of their last 18 appearances in the regular season, and eight of their last nine in The Bronx. If they see each other again in the post-season, a year after the Yanks dropped out of the ALDS, the Rays will feel they are invincible in the series.
Kevin Cash will surely feel that he owns the not-so-intangible edge in the excavation.
Boone could not even be saved by his $ 324 million bait in the hole, Gerrit Cole, whose ten hits over 6 ¹ / ₃ innings left him with 39 for the year, more than any Yankee ever after four times. Cole was Cole, and yet it was not good enough to prevent his team from losing its fifth in a row.
Boone even got a prediction assistant from Jay Bruce, who suddenly announced his retirement and made everyone in the building – the players, the manager, the media – talk about another cool guy with a record of deserving service at stake. In other words, talk about something other than just the godforsaken state of Bruce’s last team.
It didn’t help either. The Yankees finished 23rd in the major in percentage play at base, 24th in runs, 25th in total and 28th in OPS this season, and they responded with a total of two runs on three hits in the 4-2 defeat. “When we get a pitch to hammer,” Boone said, “you have to take advantage of it. … And we are not doing enough yet. ”
Worse, the Yankees’ out-of-court amateur game did nothing to support the idea that Boone’s team was mentally prepared to compete at the highest level. Hicks, the skilled golfer, committed a double bow on one game and a thug on another, which cost his starting pitcher, while Clint Frazier inexplicably threw the ball to Cole instead of to the second base. Therefore, most of the 10,606 fans in the tribunals cheered loudly after the final thinning was made. They were not only unhappy with the loss, but with the way the home team behaved during the loss.
“We are now being punched in the mouth,” Boone said. He has a Friday off Monday to find out how he can persuade his players to strike back.
Boone said he would consider shaking up a few things. ‘The most obvious move is to get Hicks out of the three holes, no matter what the analysis says to keep him there. His 0-for-4 dropped his batting average to .160 and his OBP to .236, and the numbers – along with his defensive distribution – earned the relegation.
But if Boone decides to keep his cast intact and simply play for Bruce’s inspiring words about what it means to wear the pins (however short), he should go to the videotape.
Either way, Boone needs to understand that this horror movie from the beginning is not just about Yanks’ stumbling, bumpy stars.
It is very affordable for the man who is paid to make sure the stars execute their invoices.