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AL DIVISION SERIES: YANKEES VS RED SOX

October 5, 2018

Aaron Boone

Boston, Massachusetts - postgame 1

Yankees - 4 Red Sox - 5

Q. How is Hicks?
AARON BOONE: He had some tightness in that hamstring. So he'll get examined further tomorrow, and have an MRI and everything. He felt like it might have been cramping, so we'll just have to see. I haven't personally spoken to him yet since he's come out of the game.

Hopefully we'll have a clearer picture tomorrow when he gets up and we get some pictures, too.

Q. Aaron, can you talk about Happ, and then from there on in the bullpen was outstanding. And talk about your pen.
AARON BOONE: Yeah, J.A. obviously got in a little bit of trouble in that first inning, just not having his real airtight command that he usually has, especially with the fastball. Obviously J.D. made him pay on a pitch down that he probably wanted to get a little more elevated there.

And then being at the score and where we're at we were a little aggressive going to our pen. The pen did a great job to allow us to get back in the game and give us a chance, and we almost caught them.

Q. Aaron, it just felt like it was such a big switch for you guys staying alive after falling behind, to really feeling like an opportunity lost maybe towards the end of the game with the people you left on the base and the back-to-back bases loaded situation.
AARON BOONE: Yeah. And you know, I do credit them a little bit in the fact that they did a good job of minimizing and staying away from trouble against us. And staying away from damage against us. But, yeah, we just couldn't get that really big hit that -- to have that big inning, that really jumped us back in the game in the middle innings. And I thought we did a really good job of pecking away, a good job of giving ourselves opportunities, and just ran out of time there.

But yeah, we just couldn't get that back-breaking hit that allowed us to have that big inning.

Q. Aaron, what did you think of Sale? And was it any harder to prepare for him just because he's barely pitched the last couple of months?
AARON BOONE: No, I think the prep is the same and what his stuff is, you know, usually dictates how much success you can potentially have against him.

So I thought he was good. You know, not his dominant self necessarily, but I thought he did a really nice job of mixing his pitches, changing speeds. His change-up, slider were a factor. He could reach back for a little bit on the heater when he really needed to. So I think he gave them a strong outing, no doubt about it. And did a good job I think of keeping us off balance enough.

We were able to get his pitch count up and get him out of there, and then keep crawling back into it. But overall I thought he pitched pretty effective against us.

Q. Aaron, how much of a luxury is it to have a deep bullpen like you do? And is that something you feel can be advantageous for you going forward in the series?
AARON BOONE: Yeah. I mean, that's one of our ultimate strengths. You know, if we're going to get to where we want to go, you know, the bullpen is going to play a big role in that.

They stepped up for us tonight, and allowed us to get back in that game. And did the job they've pretty much done all year for us.

Q. Aaron, you know Alex pretty well. Were you surprised to see him make that switch and go to Porcello there late in the game?
AARON BOONE: Not necessarily. I mean, we saw him warming up. Once we saw him warming up, we figured he would probably start the eighth inning. Obviously Rick has been a really good pitcher for them. And we were able to kind of work through some guys in the setup situation. So, you know, we were getting down towards the end.

I don't think we were real surprised that Porcello came in.

Q. Aaron, how big is Saturday's game with you guys having Tanaka? How big is it for the Yankees?
AARON BOONE: Well, they are all big now. I mean, this is the playoffs. Wins are precious. You know, I think as much as it's tough any time you lose a game in the postseason, you know, I think we can take away from this game that we kind of hung around, we battled. I like the way we continued to compete and give ourselves a chance. We always feel like with Tanaka on the mound, if he's on top of his game, he can shut down anyone.

So I think we'll be in a good frame of mind come to the ballpark tomorrow, and hopefully get out of here with a split.

Q. Aaron, did you notice anything about Stanton's at-bats tonight? The four strikeouts in a couple of big spots.
AARON BOONE: The one time I thought Barnes when -- I don't know I think he ran it full, or deep count, I thought Barnes made a great pitch against him, and just seeing the replay, where he started a tough pitch. Sometimes you know that goes with Giancarlo sometimes. If you make pitches against him, his outs are a lot of times strikeouts.

So he had the hit. That was part of us scoring a run. You have to live with that sometimes. Because there's many times when you make a mistake to him in that big spot, and he can come up with the big one.

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