3 Yankees most to blame for disheartening Game 1 loss to Astros

Aaron Boone

Aaron Boone’s bullpen management in Game 1 was the definition of awful.

Jameson Taillon made it into the fifth inning before showing cracks, which was really all NY needed from him. Bringing in Clarke Schmidt to close out the inning was a risk to begin with. Keeping him on the mound into the sixth? That was a jaw-droppingly silly idea that immediately backfired as Yuli Gurriel and Chas McCormick hit home runs on the reliever.

Boone then turned to Lou Trivino to salvage the rest of the sixth inning but didn’t trust him to continue into the seventh. The switch to Frankie Montas compounded the Yankees’ problems as Jeremy Peña promptly went yard as well.

Basically, Boone had everything backward in those critical innings. He should have ended Schmidt’s night when he got the job done in the fifth. He should have asked more of Trivino instead of nixing him after just seven pitches. He shouldn’t have put his faith in Montas in that spot when he hadn’t pitched on over a month.

And those are just the bullpen decisions that Boone made. Starting Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Matt Carpenter was a choice worthy of its own criticism while leaving Oswaldo Cabrera unused has no justification.