Aaron Boone facing Yankees’ first sign of trouble as obstacles mount
It’s never as easy as it looks, even when you don’t lose your 11th and 12th games of the season until less than a week before Memorial Day Weekend. The Yankees have been steamrolling all comers, a different hero every day, a fresh storyline every game. You get on a run like the Yankees have been on the last month, it’s hard to conjure pitfalls, pratfalls or potholes.
But they are out there, lurking.
Always out there. Always lurking.
The Yankees lost a pair to the White Sox Sunday, 3-1 and 5-0, and that alone was stunning given the fact that the season, to this point, has been an uninterrupted series of high points. It was only the second series the Yankees have lost all season, and they got terrific starting pitching in both ends, from Jameson Taillon (seven innings, five hits, one run) and Luis Severino (seven innings, eight hits, no runs).
“You’ll get some days like this,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
The day began with Boone doing his best to limit the damage of one potential spit-storm, and it ended with him needing to address the emergence of another.
A day after Josh Donaldson caused a major stir by either playfully (his version) or disrespectfully (almost everyone else’s) citing Jackie Robinson while addressing White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson, Boone used his usual thoughtfulness and perspective to try and make things right, or as right as can be.
“I understand that Josh has been very forthcoming with the history of it, the context of it,” Boone said early Sunday afternoon. “I don’t believe there was any malicious intent with that regard. This is just somewhere in my opinion he should not be going.”
He added: “I certainly understand this is sensitive and you gotta read the room in that sense.”
Over in the other clubhouse, where hard feelings remained, Sox closer Liam Hendriks — who, like Anderson, has had issues with Donaldson in the past — called the Yankees’ third baseman’s explanation “bulls—” and called him “delusional,” among other pleasantries.
But the only clubhouse Boone has to worry about is his own. He made a point to say his sense is there’s no issue there, but that’s what has to be his chief concern now going forward, making sure the African-American players in that room are as willing to give Donaldson a mulligan as he is. That’s something that will only be known over time.
Of as much concern is the status of his bullpen. Everyone around the Yankees was already coming to terms with the reality that Chad Green, in his walk year, is headed for a Tommy John procedure.
Then Aroldis Chapman gave up the go-ahead home run to A.J. Pollock leading off the ninth inning of the opener, was completely ineffective in a 16-pitch outing and now may or may not be dealing with an Achilles issue. And then in game two Jonathan Loaisiga, who gave up only 17 earned runs, total, for all of 2021, allowed numbers 10, 11, 12 and 13 for 2022 as that game blew up on him in the eighth.
Boone believes Loaisiga is getting close to where he needs to be. Chapman?
“He wanted the ball,” Boone said of Chapman.
But how much longer can Boone keep giving Chapman the ball? It has been a thoroughly star-crossed time in New York for Chapman, who has enjoyed long stretches of dominance where he looks like the most unhittable pitcher on the planet but also suffers through a few extended slumps every season that are as puzzling as they are damaging.
Yankees fans have never been terribly patient with Chapman. They are going to be less so now — even though Chapman has yet to blow a save, though he took the loss Sunday — thanks to the emergence of Clay Holmes.
Holmes, who closed out Saturday’s 7-5 win, has a streak of 21 straight scoreless innings and he has been electric. Boone said of Holmes: “He’s been special, probably as good a reliever as there has been in the league, I would think, to this point. I can’t imagine anyone being better.”
Chapman’s heel may buy Boone some time, but it is a reckoning that he will have to confront sooner or later. It’s never as easy as it looks, after all, no matter how many wins you pile up, no matter how raging hot you’ve been. The baseball season always finds you and challenges you, eventually.
Aaron Boone already knew that, of course. Consider Sunday just a friendly reminder.
