Brandon Tierney hasn’t felt the need to watch every inning of Yankees baseball at this point in the season, but when he did tune in on Monday night, he didn’t like what he saw.
No, not just the beatdown at the hands of the Braves. It was what he saw in the dugout during the blowout loss, which dropped the Yanks further into the depths of the Wild Card standings.
“They’re losing 9-2, and YES has a shot of Judge, Stanton, and Rizzo, gathered on the top step of the dugout, laughing,” BT said. “And I just planted that image in my head, because it’s one I haven’t seen a lot. They’ve looked lifeless and bad, but they haven’t seemed as if they don’t care much, as if they wanted to be somewhere else. That picture told me they wanted to be somewhere else.”
But what stood out even more was a response from Aaron Boone after the game, when asked if he believes the team is still showing the same effort and care as the season slips away.
“I think he’s checked out,” BT said of Boone. “He has dropped a lot of confounding, unacceptable quotes in the last month or so. He said something last night…I think he now knows he’s gone.
“’The care factor in that room is where it needs to be.’ That’s a direct quote from Aaron Boone. Skip, no it’s not, and the fact that you say that tells me you know you’re going to get fired. Aaron Boone is checked out at this point.
“If Aaron Boone had any interest in trying to change and salvage whatever remains, at least to present a fight that you’re trying to still win games, that was the time to excoriate your team…you got your three highest-paid position players laughing in the middle of a beatdown, and the manager tells us the team cares enough. They don’t care at all. Aaron Boone’s gotta go.”
Sal wonders if Boone is checked out not just because he believes he is on the cusp of losing his job, but because he doesn’t want to return as manager anyway.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to be back,” Sal said. “Maybe he can’t take it anymore. Maybe he’s frustrated with what they’re giving him.”
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