Aaron Boone understandably was upset after the New York Yankees’ postseason dreams were halted in a 6-2 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday night. But his postgame comments raised a few eyebrows.
Boone reflected on the end of the season and how increased competition in the American League has hindered success over the course of his four seasons as the Yankees manager.
“The league has closed the gap on us,” Boone told reporters, via SNY. “We’ve got to get better in every aspect. Because it’s not just the Red Sox and the Astros now in our league. Look at our division, the (Tampa Bay) Rays are a beast, Toronto (Blue Jays), there’s some teams in the Central that are better and better, teams in the West that are better and better, teams that have closed the gap on us.”
While his points about the other teams in the AL are valid, saying the league “closed the gap” on a team that hasn’t won the World Series since 2009 — eight years before Boone became manager — is interesting.
It’s been 12 years since New York was atop Major League Baseball, and Boone has not led the Yankees past the AL Championship Series during his tenure. Maybe he’s stuck in the past, perhaps he misspoke. But the Yankees have to be the one to close that gap, and they won’t do that by sending Aaron Judge home from first on a Giancarlo Stanton rocket off the Green Monster down 3-1.
At the end of the day, that gap has been closed for quite some time now.
