Anthony Rizzo isn’t buying the easy blame game aimed at Aaron Boone.
As Yankees fans vented with firing chants, the former New York first baseman stepped in to defend the manager, pointing to the bigger picture around a season that was derailed in part by health issues and a lineup that couldn’t hold up in October. With Aaron Judge out this year, the offense became a real problem, and that showed up throughout the ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Rizzo acknowledged why the fan base is frustrated. The Yankees are held to a championship standard every year, and Boone hasn’t delivered a World Series during his run as skipper. Still, Rizzo made the case that the criticism often misses what’s happening behind the scenes.
"He's very prepared. He knows an idea and understanding of what he wants to do and he executes.
His in-game decisions - and I know it's so easy, especially as a Yankee fan or a baseball fan, to nitpick everything he does, but there are reasons behind every one of his moves. There's numbers to back it up.
Sometimes, he goes off-script and goes off feel," Rizzo said, per Adam Weinrib.
That kind of backing carries weight. Rizzo has been through the grind of winning at the highest level, including a World Series with the Chicago Cubs, and he spent every day in Boone’s clubhouse. He knows the manager up close, and he clearly has respect for the way Boone operates.
Rizzo’s view won’t settle the debate on its own, but it does line up with how many others around the game seem to feel. For all the noise from the stands, Boone still has support from people who’ve actually been in the room with him.
In Other News...
Yankees Just Got Hit With A Brutal Post-ALDS Question
David Ortiz has weighed in on the Yankees ALDS loss to the Rays, and his point went beyond the box score. He framed New Yorks latest postseason disappointment as a matter of culture, saying the franchise is missing the kind of clubhouse leadership and attention to detail that helped define its most successful eras. For a team that still carries the weight of its history, that kind of critique lands differently because it goes straight to the identity the Yankees have spent years trying to project.
Alex Rodriguez added another layer by pointing out the contrast between the Yankees expensive roster and Tampa Bays ability to win with far less money. It is the sort of postmortem that follows New York whenever October ends too soon, because the questions are rarely just about talent. They are about whether the Yankees still have the standards, structure and edge that once made them hard to knock out when the games mattered most. [Read more 🡒]
Aaron Judge Just Put Yankees Pressure Squarely On Brian Cashman
The Yankees season ended in familiar frustration in the American League Division Series, with the Rays finishing off a sweep by taking the final game 4-3. Aaron Judge watched it all from the sidelines after a strained right calf and a fractured rib kept the captain out of the entire postseason, a tough absence for a lineup that never quite looked like itself without him.
Judge still struck an optimistic tone about the group, even after being limited to 66 regular-season appearances, but he also made clear where the burden now falls. His message put the focus on Brian Cashman and the front office to use the offseason to patch the rosters obvious holes, a familiar mandate in New York after another October exit. [Read more 🡒]
Yankees Offseason Shakeup Could Leave Two Weak Spots Even Thinner
The Yankees are heading into an offseason that already looks like a roster reset in a few familiar places, with several recent additions likely not sticking around after the playoff loss. Paul Blackburn, Ali Snchez, Tim Hill and Jazz Chisholm Jr. are among the names tied to that uncertainty, for reasons ranging from performance to contract decisions to the broader direction the club may want to take. For a team that expected to be built for October, the turnover feels less like fine-tuning and more like another hard look at what actually held up when the games mattered.
What makes the picture trickier is the bullpen, where New York already has to think carefully about how much it can trust from year to year and how it replaces the relievers it leans on most. Losing key arms in that group would leave two weak spots even thinner, and the Yankees do not have much room to be casual about depth after another postseason exit. The offseason decisions now looming around those spots could end up shaping the whole winter, even before the bigger moves come into view. [Read more 🡒]