The Yankees dropped another series that they had no business losing. Just don’t ask manager Aaron Boone if they’re still a championship-contending team.
In a season of lows, the New York Yankees continue to find way to drill through the bottom with their latest defeat to the Colorado Rockies on Sunday.
Here’s the latest submission for “Worst Loss of the 2023 Season:” the Yankees blew a two-run lead in the eighth inning of Sunday’s game before tying it up in the ninth. Hope! It’s what kills you. In extra time, the Yankees’ bullpen lost steam, ultimately handing a shocking victory to the worst team in the National League, with a brutal broadcaster jinx to boot.
But wait — there’s more. This isn’t an infomercial selling Scrub Daddies. This is just an editorial piece on a scrub whose caretaking of this 2023 Yankees squad ought to be more closely examined.
After the loss, Aaron Boone did his managerial duty of answering reporters’ questions, but he sure didn’t enjoy it.
The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner asked Boone whether he thought the Yankees were still a championship-contending team to which Boone lost his mind.
Here’s Boone’s long-winded word salad of an answer:
Aaron Boone gets more defensive in wake of Yankees’ pathetic loss
First, it was the no-fun chicken-parm-narrative bashing. Now, it’s like Boone typed in Kirschner’s question in Chat GPT and it spit out an unbelievably neutral response.
In Boone’s defense, the question was a bit pointless. What answer did Kirschner expect? A flat-out no? Yet the Yankees manager still took a straightforward if not a bit vapid question and blew his top.
"“You’re going to lose some series to teams that are struggling. It’s a grind every time you go out there and put a MLB uniform on. I don’t buy into that garbage at all.”"
When a team like, say the Atlanta Braves, are cruising atop their division and rumored to be championship contenders, this line of questioning is robust, but when the Yankees get the same treatment, it’s garbage? Boone sounds a tad ultra-defensive.
The White Sox, Cardinals, Cubs, and now, the Rockies have all won series against the Yankees in the last 40 days. Hence, the insecurity.
Boone’s meaningless post-game answer washes away the stellar individual performance of ace Gerrit Cole: he recorded his 24th double-digit strikeout game in pinstripes, setting the record for most in franchise history.
That feat alone is a cause for a mini-celebration, but Boone and Co. aren’t lighting up fireworks in the Bronx anytime soon.
When the Yankees play the Angels next series, they’ll be looking at Shohei Ohtani with a newfound yearning.