Yankees: 3 mistakes Aaron Boone can’t make for rest of playoffs

1. Being Too Cute With Pitching

Aaron Boone tried to get too cute in Game 2 and the Yankees paid the price.

We admire Boone’s attempt to throw Tampa Bay off guard in Game 2, but it ultimately proved to cost his club the chance at taking a commanding 2-0 series lead. As we know, touted right-hander Deivi Garcia was announced as the starter on Monday, but was removed after one inning of work, in which he allowed just one run, in favor of southpaw JA Happ.

The Rays unsurprisingly deployed a lefty-dominated lineup (five of nine batters) after it was revealed that Garcia would take the mound, so Boone decided to be sly and throw Happ into the game to create a supposed “matchup nightmare” for a few innings before turning to the bullpen. However, it didn’t take long for this strategy to blow up in the Yankees’ faces, as the 37-year-old surrendered four runs on five hits and three walks in just 2.2 innings of work, digging them into an early 5-1 hole from which they wouldn’t recover.

New York’s offense had numerous chances to retake the lead, but we aren’t going to come down on the lineup after it manufactured a whopping 31 runs through the first three games of the postseason.

This game was lost due to Boone trying to outsmart the Rays, which obviously doesn’t happen very often. He should have kept Garcia (or whoever he actually wanted to start) in the game until trouble presented itself. Now, two starters have been wasted in a losing effort and the pressure fell instead upon Masahiro Tanaka to eat up innings in Game 3 on Wednesday night. He did not succeed.

Game 4 will open with Jordan Montgomery. It had better include Deivi Garcia in some capacity. Otherwise, we’ll be experiencing more of the same.

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