Aaron Boone’s tardiness to his pre-game press conference on Sunday due to a conversation with Josh Donaldson led to much speculation about what may have transpired between the struggling veteran and manager.
Some reports suggested that Boone and Donaldson had to “clear the air” after the struggling third baseman was not in the lineup for the third consecutive game, but Boone dismissed there was any juiciness or friction between the two.
“I see some things like ‘we cleared the air’ and it was nothing like that at all,” Boone told the “Talkin’ Yanks” podcast on Tuesday. “It was just weird timing. He came in, we were gonna talk, and he’ll do that where he’ll come into my office and we’ll just talk baseball and talk about whatever.
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“This was one of those cases on the heels of a couple of days off where I was kinda working through that. So, we were talking a little bit about that. It wasn’t a ‘clearing of the air.’ It was the timing just slid right into my press conference. Felt it was important to just talk about. A lot was just baseball stuff and it carried over. I understand the wait. I get it. But it was not a lot. It was not as juicy as everyone would like it to be.”
Donaldson has become the new favorite punching bag for Yankees fans, drawing loud boos every time he makes an out.
The 37-year-old is just 6-for-48 (.125) since returning from the IL on June 2 — although five of his six hits have been home runs.
Boone said with the off day on Monday, he wasn’t sure if it was worth getting Donaldson back in there only to have another day off immediately.
“We talked about…really it came to going to give him that third day or get him back in there into an off day where we’re going out to the west coast,” Boone said. “It was simple as that. I deliberated on it a couple hours on Saturday evening. Which way do I go? Get him back in there today? In the end, just decided I want to give him an off day.”
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