AL DIVISION SERIES: ROYALS VS YANKEES

October 10, 2024

Aaron Boone

Kauffman Stadium

New York Yankees

Postgame 4 Press Conference

Yankees 3, Royals 1

Q. What did you think of Cole's performance and in the seventh were you ever tempted --

AARON BOONE: Yes. I thought Gerrit was great. Really efficient again. I thought right from the jump, his fastball was really good, and he had the command of it, and then he was able to mix other things off of that.

But it started again with the fastball tonight, being in a really good spot.

Credit to the Royals; it's a really good team over there. All four of these games were tight and I thought well-played games. I thought we did a lot of really good things throughout the series. But Gerrit setting the tone tonight, really setting us up for the back end tonight.

I was tempted a little bit in the seventh there. Was kind of going hitter to hitter depending on if the right, left, right presented itself for Clay or the left, right, left for Tommy. I was just kind of treating it like that. But my heart skipped a beat on Isbel.

Q. What was your perspective on the situation on the bottom of the sixth?

A. I don't know. I'm not even sure -- I have no idea honestly. It was like we were out there and then it was right back into we're at the end of a playoff game. So I haven't even let the dust settle and talk to the guys involved.

Q. I was talking for Nettles and Brett to --

AARON BOONE: Yeah, it was like if there was some kind of upset over the slide or whatever. We just go back and show a little Hal McRae and Willie Randolph and we'll all laugh at ourselves.

Q. Third time in the LCS for you as manager. Every year is different, but what feeling do you have about this group compared to the others that makes you confident?

AARON BOONE: Yeah, well, I'll just go -- '22 we kind of limped into it a little bit. We lost some key pieces down the stretch going into the playoffs and had a real grueling series with Cleveland with a rain-out that extended the series to that fifth game. So I remember getting into Houston middle of the night -- not an excuse, but I feel like we're in a better place right now, just from a roster standpoint, health standpoint.

But you get to this point, now we'll be down to the final four. Everyone is feeling pretty good about their teams. That's the case for me.

Q. Did you take a moment to speak to the team, and overall what are you feeling right now emotionally about what you guys just did?

AARON BOONE: Yeah, yeah, I addressed the team before we started. Short and sweet. We get to go play for a pennant now.

You talk about, you get into Spring Training and you want to put yourself in position to be a playoff team, win the division. Check, check. Now it's on to the ALCS.

Certainly this hopefully is not the end of the road for us, and we expect more. But you've got to savor or these times, too, because to get down to the final four here and I feel like be in good shape from a team standpoint, I feel like we're playing well, I feel like we're pretty well-rounded. We're not perfect by any means, but I'll take our chances.

Q. Gleyber started the first rally, knocked in the second one --

AARON BOONE: Awesome. He's just been so good at the top of our lineup now for a couple months. That's what we've been watching for the last couple months. It's that.

I don't know how many times he ended up walking in this series. I know it was a lot. But he's getting on base at such a high clip. But you see the aggression, too. First pitch of the game, here we go, boom. Then the RBI, obviously, to extend the lead. He's just been having such quality at-bats now for a couple of months, and it's been huge.

Q. And then Judge obviously got his first extra base hit.

AARON BOONE: Yeah, I think on three times today, a couple walks and the double. Yeah, I mean, Wacha has obviously given him problems over the years. But you're not going to hold him down long.

I think for all the talk around it, I still think he's on base seven times in four games. Man, I was rolling -- I was playing good when those things were happening. You know, he's in a good spot, and we're excited for the next challenge.

Q. What are some things that you liked that you saw in this series? I would imagine Torres -- is he okay, by the way?

AARON BOONE: Yeah, yeah, he's fine.

Q. Torres and Stanton, the bullpen at the end, what did you see that you liked in these four games?

AARON BOONE: Yeah, look, Riz goes down, so what's first base going to look like? Man, Cabrera and Berti were outstanding in this series, defensively and providing a little something offensively, too.

Look, we didn't score a ton of runs this series, but I think you look at our at-bats against a really good pitching staff, both starters and relievers, I thought we gave ourselves really good chances each and every night. We didn't really break through big time offensively, but I thought the at-bat qualities from a lot of different people were solid.

Obviously the pen was excellent. We got enough starting pitching. Gerrit, outstanding today, Clarke yesterday.

The contributions were all there. I thought we did some good things defensively. Dugey was excellent in left. Juan in that first game with the throw-out at the plate, that's a huge, huge play in that game. I thought Aaron was excellent in center. I thought we caught the ball pretty well. I thought Austin was excellent behind the plate.

I thought we played a real clean brand of baseball and won some games in different ways, whether it was the pitching, whether it was the defense making a play, whether it was heavy, long at-bats that grinded them down a little bit.

Yeah, a good series against a good club.