Managing Yankees World Series bullpen for Aaron Boone so he doesn’t have to

The New York Yankees had Game 1 of the World Series there for the taking. Yes, Aaron Judge had failed to come through yet again. Yes, the defense was far from great. But still: New York took a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the 10th, just three outs away from snatching home-field advantage and taking one huge step toward title No. 28.

And then Aaron Boone decided to fritter it away. In a move that will go down in infamy should the Yankees go on to lose this series (and possibly even if they win it), Boone decided against calling on lefty reliever Tim Hill — who's been great all postseason long — to face Shohei Ohtani and the top of the Dodgers' order. Instead he went with Nestor Cortes, a starter with hardly any high-leverage relief experience who hadn't pitched in a game in over a month due to an elbow strain. Three batters and one instantly iconic grand slam later, it was the Yankees who found themselves in a 0-1 series hole.

For neutral fans, it was the exclamation point on one of the greatest games in World Series history. For Yankees fans, it was just one more chapter in the same old story. Of course Boone would manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the World Series: He's been baffling the Bronx with his bullpen decisions from seemingly the moment the team hired him as manager. There's an abundance of evidence that Boone simply can't be trusted to manage his relievers when the lights are brightest; so we're going to do it for him. Just follow our three simple rules, Aaron, and maybe your team can get back into this series yet.

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Remove Clay Holmes from the circle of trust

We were willing to defend Holmes for his regular-season hiccups — his overall numbers were still very good — but at this point, we've seen enough. The former closer was a disaster during the ALCS against the Cleveland Guardians, and those struggles continued into the World Series: Called upon to replace Gerrit Cole with a man on in the bottom of the seventh, Holmes simply couldn't find his command, plunking the first batter he faced. The Dodgers bailed him out from there, with Enrique Hernandez laying down a bunt and Will Smith swinging at the first pitch, but the fact remains that Holmes couldn't throw a single pitch in the zone. The Yankees are lucky they got out of the inning unscathed, and Boone needs to take heed and drop Holmes at least a rung or two down the leverage ladder.

Give Jake Cousins and Mark Leiter Jr. more of a chance

A couple candidates to take Holmes' spot? How about two other righties who acquitted themselves surprisingly well in the ALCS. Cousins has slowly been gaining Boone's trust, even getting called on to start the bottom of the 10th. He allowed a walk and a single, but it's worth noting that the single could very easily have been turned into at least one out with some better defense from Oswaldo Cabrera at second base. Overall, Cousins has been a very pleasant surprise this season, and he has the sort of stuff (especially a wicked slider) to be a legitimate back-end option behind Luke Weaver and Tommy Kahnle.

Leiter Jr. didn't get a chance to pitch in Game 1, but he should be right there with Cousins in the second tier of relief options. He looked to be a bust after struggling mightily following a midseason trade, but Boone unearthed him out of necessity against Cleveland and was rewarded with some lights-out pitching. When Leiter Jr.'s splitter is on, he can be as good as anyone, and he deserves a chance to prove that he can be more reliable than Holmes moving forward.

Stop trying to be a hero and just manage the game

You could also title this "just use your actual relievers rather than a starter returning from an arm injury". The decision to give the ball to Cortes with the game on the line is still just as gob-smacking as it was when Boone made it, and speaks to a larger issue with Boone's bullpen management: Rather than just making the simple, obvious move — he had Hill warmed up alongside Cortes, suggesting that even he knew what the right thing to do was — New York's skipper will often go full galaxy brain, trying to play four-dimensional chess and zig when everyone else is zagging.

But sometimes there's a reason why everyone is zagging in the first place. Boone doesn't have the deepest bullpen around, and Yankees pitchers also deserve their share of the blame. In the end, though, Boone's job is to let the game ride on his best available options, and too often he finds himself getting way too cute.