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AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: YANKEES VS ASTROS

October 12, 2019

Aaron Boone

Houston, Texas - pregame 1

Q. Obviously the roster is a little different, the additions of CC Sabathia and Aaron Hicks. What went into those decisions?
AARON BOONE: CC obviously threw his side a few days ago and thought he looked really good. I thought he was sharp. I thought he was able to really finish his pitches and then the bounceback the next day. I just felt like physically he was sound to go, and feel like there's a role for him in this series, and maybe a couple different ways we saw the value there.

Kind of settled on 13 pitchers probably a day or two ago, a pretty strong consensus that we wanted to go that way. And then yeah, felt like -- and then obviously that led to some difficult decisions to fill out the position player side.

Q. Moving Gleyber up to 3 and Didi down to 9, what went into those decisions?
AARON BOONE: Just felt like I liked that against Greinke lining it up that way, obviously keeping a little bit of separation between our two lefties and not stacking them too close together. Because Gardy moved down there, just splitting Didi, and I think you guys have seen kind of how much I like our nine spot, that's a guy to turn things over.

And because of our health right now, feel really good about the depth obviously of our lineup.

Q. Do you still see CC as more of a matchup guy than a length guy?
AARON BOONE: Yeah, I could see both, honestly. I think the biggest thing we'll find out is how he's able to bounce back.

I feel good about where he's at right now. I feel good about his ability to get up, get loose quickly. I think the biggest thing now moving forward, does he bounce back. So we'll see. But I can see a couple of different roles for him.

Q. Do you look at Hicks totally off the bench this whole series or could you see him moving into the starting lineup?
AARON BOONE: It's a little bit of unknown. I could see that role evolving. A lot can change over the course of a series.

And there's a little unknown with Aaron, obviously. He's obviously a very good player, an impact player. And he's healthy and sound and worked hard to get back to this point to put himself in that conversation. The big unknown is he just hasn't played any games for a while. Obviously on the bench right now. We'll see what role he plays in that. But certainly it can be a long series and would not be surprised if he's in there at some point.

Q. He's not going to pitch until Game 3, but you spoke very well of Gerrit Cole yesterday. I just wanted to follow up. This 18-hour run that he's on hasn't been done in-season since 1912. He's got 350 strikeouts, almost 700 swings and misses. Excellent stuff. Do you think that Cole right now, presently, in his present form is like the best pitcher maybe we've seen in 20 years, just the way he's pitching right now?
AARON BOONE: He's probably got to regress to the mean a little bit, so hopefully that happens this series. He's tough and in a great groove, obviously. Our job is to try and figure out a way to beat him and we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Q. Last night I got a chance to witness Reggie Jackson talking to Aaron Judge about giving him some batting tips, I think. How good is it to have a Hall of Famer around your ball club like that?
AARON BOONE: Huge. Reggie, man, has been through so much in this game. Obviously playing in New York, playing when he did and winning championships here. There's just so much wisdom that he offers guys all the time, life wisdom, baseball, it's still very much in his blood. He's around us quite a bit during the season. So he's always offering up I think words of advice for not only our guys in the Big Leagues but he goes down in the Minor Leagues, too, and touches guys down there and is very involved in our organization and we're lucky to have him.

Q. We saw the report earlier this week that the balls aren't going as far in the playoffs. And the Cardinals today said their analytics were very specific on how much shorter they were going. I wondered if you noticed anything or did you sense anything different?
AARON BOONE: No, other than when you said that I hadn't heard anything. So I'm going to ask our guys what we've got. There may be a couple of balls in Minnesota that seemed like maybe they could have gone a little further, whether that's the cooler weather, those kind of things, I don't know. I'm just hearing about this now. I don't know what to make of that.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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