Aaron Boone: Yankees had to be better, but criticism of fundamentals 'blew up too much' after World Series

The face of the Yankees’ 2024 season has become, in many ways, the disastrous fifth inning in game five of the World Series that saw five unearned runs score and a 5-0 lead vanish.

Joe Kelly, Miguel Rojas, and others publicly ridiculed the Bombers’ struggles in the field and on the bases, and that the Dodgers believed it would only be a matter of time until New York imploded and gave a game, and the series, away.

Asked about the public ridicule that followed after the Yankees lost in the Fall Classic, Aaron Boone admitted that it was a little bothersome to hear, but he ultimately stood by the organization’s process and emphasis on fundamental baseball.

“I mean, a little bit,” Boone said when asked if the criticism bothered him. “Bottom line is, we didn’t play as well as we could have…that’s the ultimate disappointment.

“I am very proud of what we do as a group…You’re constantly leaning into [the fundamentals]. I think it’s a story that blew up too much, and understandably. We had a really tough inning. But I think if you go back through the course of the season…2024 was a year in which we had a very good offense, but if you go back and look at storylines throughout the season, I felt like there were a lot of times we were in games because of a big defensive play or small ball…or in game four, where we get a double steal and contact brings him home…we won games because of little things we did well over the course of the year.”

The Yankees certainly improved in the contact category in 2024 and increased walks while decreasing strikeouts, but in the field, all kinds of mishaps doomed them on the biggest stage, from Gleyber Torres mishandling a throw from the outfield in game one to the comedy of mishaps in game five, starting with Aaron Judge’s dropped flyball, continuing with Anthony Volpe’s spiked throw to third base, and concluding with Gerrit Cole failing to cover first base on a cue shot to Anthony Rizzo. The horrific inning diluted what was a season where the Yankees won their first pennant in 15 years, but Boone says the team got to that point for a reason, and their emphasis on fundamentals was one of them, even if it failed them at the worst possible time.

“We had a very tough inning that understandably gets a lot of attention in game five,” Boone said. “But there’s nothing that we don’t lean into heavily.”