As the Yankees' regular season comes to a close, manager Aaron Boone's priority is to figure out his rotation for the team's postseason run.
Masahiro Tanaka appears as the most likely candidate to pitch in Game 1 as he leads Yankees' pitchers in with 179 innings pitched, but J.A. Happ, Luis Severino and James Paxton make strong arguments to pitch when the American League Divisional Series begins on Oct. 4.
Boone discussed with Mike Francesa on "Mike's On" that it isn't a given that Tanaka, who hold an 11-8 record and a 4.47 ERA, will start the first game - which is in all likelihood -against the Twins if the season ended on Thursday.
"In my eyes, how you line it up - I personally have been going back and forth between a few guys," Boone said. "That'll be something that as a staff we really start to focus in on and just see what's the best way to deploy our guys ... I think we'll probably wait a little bit. I could become a little more clear at the end of the weekend and we'll obviously want to start to prepare our guys as best we can. But it might be something that spills over into early next week just how exactly we want to line it up."
Boone has been particularly keen of how his rotation has performed heading into the postseason thus creating the difficult scenario.
"I feel good about where our starters are right now, how they're throwing the ball. Our (bullpen) guys I feel like are in a good place," Boone said. "The toughest call for us is how to line them up. Who goes Game 1, Game 2 (and) Game 3? Those will be the questions we try and answer over the next week. But I think part of the reason it's kind of a tough call is because we do feel like obviously our starters are pitching probably as well as they have at any time during the year."
CC Sabathia likely won't be a part of the Yankees' rotation. Sabathia already started working in the bullpen, striking out two batters in the Yankees' 2-1 loss on Sept. 24. Boone expects the veteran to be a key piece in the team's bullpen
"Obviously his first relief outing the other day went off well," Boone said. "He'll do that again here in Texas. The one the other day, we kind of scripted and it was like, 'Alright, you'll be in this inning' but next time out this weekend in Texas, we want it to be a little more unscripted. The encouraging thing about the other day after he pitched was the next day he came in and felt great. He even said to me 'I can pitch today. I feel great.'
"So as tough of a year it's been for him and just managing that knee, we do feel like it's at least in a pretty good spot right now to where he can be a guy that gives us some big outs. I do think there's absolutely a role for him as long as he's able to continue to bounce back."
Click the audio player above to listen to Boone's interview in its entirety.
