AL DIVISION SERIES: GUARDIANS VS YANKEES

October 14, 2022

Aaron Boone

Yankee Stadium

New York Yankees

Postgame 2 Press Conference

Guardians - 4, Yankees - 2

Q. What did you see from the at-bat quality this afternoon?

AARON BOONE: I think it's one of those days for both sides where you start getting into the shadows, it gets to be a tough, tough day to hit. You know, I thought obviously you're going up against Bieber, he's going to be tough with his execution.

We got into some deep counts there where we got into 3-2 and lost a lot of our 3-2 battles, but I thought Stephan really came in and executed. You know, Karinchak and Clase, we made them work but just ultimately weren't able to break through. And for most of the day, it was one of those days where it's a little bit tougher for the hitters to see it up there.

Q. What did you make of Donaldson's decision to throw the ball -- did he have a play potentially?

AARON BOONE: I'd have to look back at it. If it's not on target, maybe. You guys know better than me. I haven't re-looked at the play. But I think you see him going up for a second there, and, you know, I thought he was quick to recognize it. I thought it was heads-up. If it's going to be close, you go for it. You trust yourself to make that throw.

Q. What have you seen from Judge's at-bats so far this series? Last time up was the first time he made contact.

AARON BOONE: I think a lot of the day, they executed against him. The couple pitches he's gotten to hit, he's fouled off. I think a lot of today was a product of execution by them and being just a challenging day, picking up spin, things like that.

Q. I was going to ask about Judge as well. Are you surprised, the year that he's had; the boos after he swung and missed?

AARON BOONE: It's the Bronx, man.

Q. Do you think the gap, after how much pressure he was under near the end of the season, trying to readjust, how much do you think all of this has to do with the fact that, you know, he started off slowly in the first two games?

AARON BOONE: How much does what have to do with it? The layoff?

Q. Well, and also, coming off the 12-game --

AARON BOONE: It's baseball. You're up against the best. Tough-hitting conditions. Like, great hitters go 0-for on a given day.

You know, great hitters fail more often than they succeed, even when you're rolling. You know, they neutralized him here the first two days, pitched him really tough. But he'll get back on the horse and be as dangerous as they come tomorrow night.

Q. You had Locastro in the game to run, he stayed in the DH spot. Any reason you stayed with him against Clase instead of Marwin or Hicks?

AARON BOONE: Clase, a little bit more of a reverse split guy, a guy that doesn't really typically walk guys. So it's just -- it was for me it was a little bit of a wash of an at-bat there, so I didn't want to burn the player with Timmy already in the game.

Q. So both those guys are healthy?

AARON BOONE: Yeah.

Q. Using Carpenter in that spot, you wanted to get him in the game?

AARON BOONE: I didn't just want to get him in the game. I wanted him to win the game.

Q. In that spot, not later in the game?

AARON BOONE: That's our shot right there -- not our shot. But it's first and second, two outs. Let's go. I feel like it was a tie ballgame there. You don't -- you can't always wait around; you start waiting forever. Any time we had a really good leverage situation and a matchup we liked, I was going to go with it.

Q. Stanton has 10 home runs in 20 postseason games. What is it about his approach that works this time of year?

AARON BOONE: You know, I think the last couple of years, he's come in in a really good place. Like he's worked hard to get to this point, with some struggles obviously in the back when he came off the IL. It was a struggle there for a few weeks, but I think in his mind, he was all building towards getting himself right. Dealing with what he had to deal with physically, how to interact in the box correctly, he's real specific. He's real diligent. He does a great job of blocking everything out and being really strict and disciplined to his plan, and having a tough mindset in going up there and committing to that.

Having success the last couple years, he knows what it takes and has his mind in a good place.

Q. How does it feel going to Cleveland 1-1 as opposed to being up 2-0?

AARON BOONE: I don't know. We're not up 2-0 so I don't know what that feels like. You know, that's a good team over there. They can run pitchers out there. They have got their ace on the mound today on a day where it's tough to hit. They run good guys out of the pen. So we just couldn't break through today.

We never thought this was going to be easy. You know, we'll get on that plane and go and try and grab one tomorrow. So you know, something changes for us. We never expected any of this this time of year to be easy, and nothing's been easy for us this year, especially in the second half of the season.