How Aaron Boone somehow found way to get worn out Yankees to 27 outs
CLEVELAND — Aaron Boone admitted there were times he “wasn’t quite sure how he was going to get to the finish line.” His bench coach, Brad Ausmus, conceded, “Yes, it goes through your mind” that they might not have a pathway to 27 outs.Boone, Ausmus and pitching coach Matt Blake were as much an improv troupe as the dugout leadership of the Yankees.And their little bit of Second City ad-libbing helped move the Yankees closer to bringing the World Series back to the First City.Boone never said out loud that he had no idea how he could tag-team pitch this game, “But it was on my mind.”The Yankees did get to the end, 8-6 winners in ALCS Game 4 over the relentless Guardians.
They did so because their power bats came out with Juan Soto, Austin Wells and yet again Giancarlo Stanton all going deep.And they won because they do have fortitude.They had suffered a gut-punch, gut-wrenching Game 3 loss when they thought the power of Aaron Judge and Stanton was going to carry them to a three-games-to-none lead only to see the best of their bullpen collapse and the Guardians win in extra innings.And they won Friday in what Boone called, “Not a perfect game, but a gritty, tough, winning game.”They blew the 6-2 lead Stanton created in the sixth with a three-run homer.
They had Mark Leiter Jr.and Anthony Rizzo team on a how-many-mistakes-can-we-make-on-the-same-play mishap to allow the Guardians to tie the score in the eighth inning.
And at that moment, with 35,263 at Progressive Field full-throated and the Yanks on the cliff of blowing yet another game and seeing the ALCS get tied at two apiece, they found something.It was part that Boone and Co.orchestrated well enough and part that the Guardian pen is even more on fumes than that of the Yankees.Judge and Stanton had homered off Emmanuel Clase, the majors’ best reliever, on Thursday night.
Stanton hit his three-run homer off Cade Smith, arguably the best set-up man.And the Yankees delivered two runs in the...