Imagining Aaron Boone's presser if you gave him truth serum after Sunday's Yankees loss

"Yeah. Yeah, this was a tough one. But we battled. We did. Nestor battled. And we really feel like this lineup is close to turning a corner."

"You may not have seen it today. You may not have seen it yesterday. Oh, day before that? No chance. But behind the scenes, you can see it. For the guys in the building, we can see it. Willie Calhoun can bang. Franchy Cordero, who we tried to get rid of, but is already back, can bang. Jake Bauers? I know you were all excited about him before his injury, but take it from me, he can't bang. We're better without him. Bottom line, we're on the exact path we charted before the season. We wanted to be tied for last in the AL East. This is exactly where we needed to be."

"Oop. Sorry, guys. One second." [Boone is injected by a truth serum-filled needle by a cloaked member of Hal Steinbrenner's entourage]

"Holy cow, we're inept. I mean, my God. You couldn't put out a lineup this bad if you were trying to tank for Wembanyama."

Honest Yankees Aaron Boone press conference

"Hey, real quick, before I was injected with truth serum, was I being overly positive? OK, that is crazy. Crazy. We stink. I'm sorry, guys."

"Bottom line, we used our budget on a Captain who's not here and a pitcher who's not here. I know you want to say a nearly-$10 billion organization shouldn't have a budget, but we do. All of them do. The Dodgers, the Red Sox, YUM! Brands, every conglomerate has a line. And we used most of our budget on Josh Donaldson last offseason. Which is crazy. Insane. Sometimes, when I'm lying awake in bed at night, I'm just like, 'Did we really do that?'. But we did, on purpose."

"But at least Josh should be back soon, and we can't wait for him to wake up our offense by -- HAHAHA, sorry, oh man. You should've seen your faces. Josh is as limp as a shell-less snail."

"Look, we bungled it again, OK? We spit the bit. We had to get an ace at last year's trade deadline, and we got a guy who pretended his shoulder didn't hurt. Pretty clear it hurt. Swing and a miss by us. When it comes to assessing trades, we're like a regular Franchy Cordero. But hey, we should've made more contact last year. Andrew Benintendi would've helped. With him, we'd have lost the ALCS in five."

"Then we tried to address it again this offseason. We got Carlos Rodón. And he's awesome. He'll be awesome when he's back. Sevy will, too. We're going to lose so many 2-1 games it'll make you question your faith in the fabric of the universe. Buckle up."

"For now, we're going to keep rolling with Clarke Schmidt. Not because he's shown us a spark, but because Cash and I have a bet going on whether or not he can pile up the highest ERA in Yankees history. I bet he can. Esteban Loaíza is shuddering right now. From jail. He's shuddering from jail."

"Anyway, guys, I'm sorry I sometimes try to sugar coat things. I just don't want to acknowledge the reality that I inherited the most exciting young team in baseball, sat by on autopilot as they won 100 and 103 games in my first two years, but got run over in Year 1 by a better Red Sox team and outfoxed in Year 2 by a team full of cheaters that has our number. Then, we started getting worse. That was as good as it got. Believe me, it eats me alive, too. So I try to mask that regret with a happy face. Hope you guys get it. I'd rather be anywhere but here, and frankly, I should be. Can someone tell Hal I should be? And, furthermore -- zzzzfftt ... pfffffbbb..."

"We took some real good swings today. Real good. One more win and we're back two games over .500. And that's the goal, at the end of the day. If we ever get three games over .500, it'll be one hell of a story."