Aaron Boone learned from his massive Game 1 blunder to bury the Red Sox

The New York Yankees put the Boston Red Sox six feet under on Thursday night with a commanding 4-0 victory. All it took was a single explosive inning on offense, helped along by Boston's horrendous defense, for the Yankees to cruise to a shutout and their second straight ALDS berth. As their division rivals go back to the drawing board, New York sets its sights on another AL East foe: the No. 1 seed Toronto Blue Jays.

Cam Schlittler was the star of Game 3. The Yankees rookie, with only 14 starts to his name, put together his best performance to date on baseball's grandest stage. He went eight scoreless innings, allowing only five hits and zero walks with 12 strikeouts. Schlittler became the first player in MLB Postseason history to pitch eight scoreless innings with zero walks and 12-plus strikeouts. Not bad, rook.

Schlittler deserves the bulk of the credit for New York's victory. Even the Yankees' brief offensive explosion in the fourth inning was more the result of self-inflicted wounds from Boston than anything New York was doing. Boston's own rookie arm, Connelly Early, pitched a much better game than his 7.36 ERA would suggest. Want proof? He put up a 0.68 FIP, which accounts only for what a pitcher can control. The Red Sox defense ruined a potentially historic pitching duel between two rookies ready to meet the moment.

All that said, we must also hand it to Aaron Boone. The Yankees' manager has endured his share of criticism this season, and for years on end, but he made a critical adjustment in Game 3 and rode it all the way to a series win.

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Aaron Boone learned his lesson with Max Fried and let Cam Schlittler cook

Boone came under fire after Game 1, when he removed Yankees ace Max Fried after 6.1 scoreless innings. Luke Weaver immediately put three runners on base and allowed two runs before he, too, was yanked. That was all she wrote, as Boston won 3-1. Fried had allowed four hits and three walks to that point, working out of every jam. He sat at 102 pitches.

The situation was, admittedly, different with Sclittler. Fried was pulled with New York up 1-0, not 4-0. Schlittler also entered the eighth inning with fewer than 100 pitches, so he was operating a bit more efficiently than Fried. But even so, Boone never wavered in his faith in the rookie. He let Schlittler put a few base-runners on without overreacting and overtaxing the bullpen. Some even thought he should have kept Schlittler in for the ninth, although turning over a four-run lead to a fresh David Bednar in the ninth is basically the ideal outcome for any Yankees start.

Rather than getting cute with the bullpen, Boone did was so few managers are willing to do nowadays. He rode with his starter deep into the game and never once picked up the phone or meaningfully considered a call to the 'pen. Schlittler deserves credit for just going ballistic all night — he only needed 11 pitches to breeze through the seventh! — but Boone sticking with a rookie in high-leverage, late-inning situations takes some guts. He clearly took the right lessons from New York's Game 1 collapse.

Baseball is a funny sport. Just about anything can or will happen, so we can only really ascribe value to a decision after the fact. Had Schlittler hit a wall in the eighth inning, Boone would be getting criticized for overcorrecting. Had he pulled Schlittler after the sixth to set up three scoreless frames from the New York bullpen, you wouldn't heard a peep of criticism. But Boone stuck to his guts and made the right judgement call on Schlittler's stuff, which was as good in the eighth inning as it was in the first. It was a special performance from a special pitcher.

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