Aaron Boone backing his players takes odd turn with Jazz Chisholm Jr. situation

Jazz Chisholm Jr.'s horrific gaffe against the Tampa Bay Rays in the 10th inning cost the New York Yankees a chance at a victory and guaranteed a loss. Even more damning were his postgame comments, when he sounded for a moment that he didn't know the rules regarding turning a double play before the runner on third scored. The only thing left to see was how extreme players' manager, Aaron Boone, would react. As one expected, Boone supported Jazz, but in the process, he told us all that we didn't hear what we just heard a day earlier.

"He's not confused on it," Boone said on Sunday. "I think that's his kind of default answer when he's got guys in front of him, or whatever. Look, it turns out to be a tough play. You asked about kind of watching it back, there might have been a chance where if he gets it cleanly he gets the tag off. It's hard to know how Diaz reacts in that moment, so once it chops like that, you know it's obviously going to be a tough one to turn the normal 4-6-3. Um, so... yeah."

When asked to clarify that he was saying Chisholm knew the rule in that situation, Boone smiled and responded, "I think he knows the rule. Yes."

Aaron Boone is telling us we can't trust the Yankees' players

There's something to be said for being a manager who leads with the carrot rather than the stick, especially in a highly pressurized market like New York. However, it was pretty clear by Chisholm Jr.'s reaction, especially when Trent Grisham explained it to him in front of reporters, that he had no clue how the rule works.

To be fair, it was a pretty difficult play, especially with the ball and the runner arriving where Chisholm Jr. was at almost simultaneously. Boone could have supported him by highlighting the degree of difficulty and assuring everyone that he knows he needs to do better, and that would have been that. Instead, he chose to gaslight us.

This isn't the first time a player hasn't known the rules under Boone. In fact, two years ago, the Yankees whiffed while on the opposite end of a similar situation when Anthony Volpe pulled up before crossing the plate, not realizing he needed to score before the tag.

Boone's failure to hold players accountable even for basic things brought him into the crosshairs of a couple of Yankees legends, when Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez took him to task as the team underwent its now-annual summer swoon.

As long as he's at the helm, Boone is going to defend his players, and fans and pundits alike are always going to be unhappy with the level of accountability that is perceived. This is year nine of the Boone experience. If his tactics were going to change, they would've by now.

What Boone didn't realize in this instance, though, is that his staunch defense of Chisholm Jr. actually gives us reason to doubt the second baseman even more. If he's telling us one thing, and the manager is telling us he doesn't actually mean that, he's actually saying we can't believe the players. That's only going to open them up to more scrutiny when things go wrong. We'll all be waiting for Boone to try and smooth things over by telling us what we just saw or heard wasn't actually what we saw or heard, cutting his players' legs out from under themselves in the process.