Yankees Hot Corner – This loss is on Aaron Boone

I don’t usually do these because baseball is such a long season and there are ups and down all year, but what the hell are you doing Aaron Boone?  The Yankees lost Wednesday night’s game to the Toronto Blue Jays 11-7 and in turn officially ended their streak of consecutive series wins at nine.

This loss is on Aaron Boone despite the plethora of issues throughout the game.  Gio Urshela had a throwing and a fielding error and Gleyber Torres had an error as well.  The mantra is that you win as a team and lose as a team.  However, when your manager gives you no chance to get back in the game after some miscues, it should be on him.

Boone’s two mistakes came with his bullpen management.  James Paxton was not sharp, only going 4 2/3 innings of four hit, four run (three earned) ball.  However, Boone turned to Adam Ottavino and Tommy Kahnle for an inning and a third total.  His mistake came when he put in Jonathan Holder in a high leverage situation, again.

Holder isn’t a terrible pitcher but he should by no means be in high leverage situations.  However, for some reason Boone loves him and puts him in almost every high leverage situation.  He hasn’t been horrible so far but nights like Wednesday are the reason why Holder shouldn’t be in this position.

With two on and the Yankees holding a 7-4 lead, Holder gave up a double down the right field line to Teoscar Hernandez.  Holder didn’t blow the game but put the Blue Jays in striking distance.  In come Zack Britton, who has been excellent up to this point.  Unfortunately he gave up a three run home run to Vlad Guerrero Jr. to break open the game in the Blue Jays’ favor, 9-7.

The next misstep is the reason why as well as Boone has done so far this season, he still has a long way to go.  With the Yankees only down two runs, Boone brings in Luis Cessa to try and get the final two outs of the inning.  Instead of getting those two outs immediately, Cessa gives up two solo home runs and the Yankees go down 11-7, without a real shot to come back and win the game.

The constant use of Cessa and Holder is what’s holding Aaron Boone back from being a great manager.  Too many times we’ve seen him bring in Holder or Cessa in a high leverage situation and the Yankees either blow the lead or fall too far out to recover.  Aaron Boone deserves all the credit in the world for when the team is doing well, but he deserves equal blame for nights like this.