If you heard YES Network’s Yankees Postgame Show on Thursday night, the panel gave a big reason why the team is down 0-2 to the Astros: so far this series, the team has struck out nearly 43 percent of the time, with 30 of their 54 outs coming via the K (an out percentage over 50 percent).
“I mean 30 strikeouts is, that's too much. We know we got to be better than that,” Boone said Friday during a manager-only media session on the ALCS’ lone off-day. “You've got to be able to make series adjustments, in-game adjustments. That's all part of the game. So hopefully we're able to do that.”
As Boomer & Gio lamented Friday morning, Giancarlo Stanton was seemingly the only Yankee who mentioned having to make adjustments after the Game 2 loss, but Boone doesn’t seem to think any drastic changes are needed.
“I don't think there's any abandoning of a certain thing. You got to understand that, especially when you're up against elite pitching, you got to find a way,” Boone said. “Sometimes that calls in a situation of shortening up, depending on where you are in the count, what is the situation of the game, what's the scoreboard telling you. Those things are all part of being a really good major league hitter and you have to play to that, but I don't think there's a drastic change in approach now of what we do. At the end of the day it comes down to making great swing decisions, controlling the strike zone and then playing the game within the game when that calls for it.”
There’s no magic formula for how to do it all, but the basic idea is that the Yankees have to find a way to score runs without hitting the ball over the fence.
“It’s not impossible, but it’s hard to win when you score two runs. We understand the challenge this Houston staff creates, but we've got to find a way to do that, and I think that's a collective effort,” Boone said. “You hear us talk about passing the baton and things like that. That happened all year. It's not always an at-bat that results in a base hit or a home run or a walk or a score, but it's the collective taking on really hard, tough grind-it-out at-bats that hopefully serve us well as the game continues to move forward and netting a mistake or putting a guy in trouble or keeping the pressure on the entire time.”
The Yankees have been reliant on the home run all postseason – 18 of 24 runs over their seven games have come on the long ball – but it’s the offense the Yankees have, so they’re going to have to find a way.
“That’s the most important thing, especially right now when it’s really hard,” Boone said. “I think that happens with collectively, as a group, winning pitches, forcing them to be at their absolute best all the time. And hopefully over the course of a game that shows up eventually in some mistakes for guys that we're able to take advantage of.”
As Boone lamented, every team would love to have a lineup full of .300 hitters with 30 homers, but the Yankees only have one who did both and two others who had one (Anthony Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton with 30+ dingers). It’s just not to be, but for the Yankees, it’s time to learn how to put the ball in play more often, because a home run or bust offense isn’t going to beat Houston, it seems.
“Look, we're constantly searching for a more perfect, the most perfect offense, right? You want to be the best you can be, and elite contact skills are valued,” Boone said, “and it’s hard in this day and age to not be a team that hits the ball out of the ballpark to be an elite offense, and certainly in the postseason, regardless of what people say, the home run ball is enormous – but yesterday, when we needed the ball in play, that's what allowed us to get our two runs. So that was at least encouraging. Now we got to find a way against a great pitching staff, though, to do a little bit of both. I still think it's very important that we put a premium on controlling the strike zone because making really good swing decisions is always important, but you have to find a way in some of these games when you do have opportunities.”
Boone noted that the Yankees’ offense was similar at times last year, and it can be an unfair narrative, which can affect mindset, but that’s “a dangerous place to be” – because it’s more about controlling the zone, at least to him.
“You know, contact is incredibly important, especially in certain situations. But I would argue that controlling the strike zone is more important. And getting a good pitch to hit is more important,” he said. “Sometimes when you get so focused on, I'm going to go touch the ball, you start expanding the strike zone. And when you do that against Houston, you're in trouble and you're playing into their hands. So you got to be able to strike that balance of understanding situational hitting, and being able to understand and process that and slow all that down in the moment is critical.”
If the Yankees don’t find a way in Game 3, though, they’ll have to win four in a row to get to the World Series – although Boone stopped short of calling Saturday’s game a “must-win.”
“I don’t even look at it like that. It's like we're doing all we can to try and win. We know we're coming home obviously, which we're excited about, and we’re giving the ball to Gerrit Cole and hopefully he can go out and hold them down and get us off to a good start, and then we can do enough offensively,” Boone said. “So we know we're up against it, certainly, but we look forward to going out and trying to win a baseball game. That's kind of as far as we look into it.”
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN
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