ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The Yankees are one step closer to the World Series, and the path there says as much about Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone as it does about the opponents they’ve beaten.
Boston made things easier than it should have. The Red Sox managed only two runs in 18 innings, and they never looked equipped to stay with the Yankees over a full Wild Card Series. If the matchup were played 10 times, the Yankees would probably take nine of them.
But the bigger point is this: this isn’t some miracle run by a team carried purely by talent or luck. The Yankees are built and managed well.
Not the best roster they’ve had in the last 20 years, maybe not even close, but a roster that fits together and has been handled with a steady hand. That is where Cashman and Boone deserve their credit.
Of course, that won’t persuade the people who have wanted both men gone for years. Those critics are not exactly waiting around for a change of heart.
One longtime skeptic - an old college buddy, in this case - put it bluntly: “Anyone could’ve beaten the Red Sox. That’s how much they sucked.”
He’s not totally off base when it comes to Boston’s offense. It was hard to reconcile that version of the Red Sox with the team that ripped off a 14-game winning streak earlier this summer.
But the idea that any manager could have guided this Yankees group through the series is a stretch. That thinking reduces the job to filling out a lineup card and handling postgame interviews.
It’s not that simple.
Managers bring different temperaments, and those temperaments matter. Joe Torre’s easygoing, streetwise style made him the right fit after the more intensely involved Buck Showalter.
Joe Girardi brought the opposite feel later on - hyper-prepared, process-driven, always on top of the details. Boone fit the next turn of the wheel because Cashman saw him as smart, calm and relatable.
Those traits don’t matter much to a fan base that measures everything in trophies, and Boone still carries the obvious burden: he has not won a championship since taking over in 2018. In the Bronx, that’s a long time to wait.
But it also doesn’t make him a bad manager. The Yankees remain competitive because he checks a lot of other boxes, and his players trust him.
He also handled this series well, and his most important call came in Game 1. After Cam Schlittler had thrown 117 pitches, Boone turned to Paul Blackburn in the seventh with a 2-0 lead. With Ceddanne Rafaela up and the tying run at the plate, Blackburn got the inning-ending double play, and the Yankees rolled from there, scoring seven runs over the next two innings.
Chad Tracy, the man in the other dugout, didn’t get that kind of benefit from his own decisions. In both games, he removed his starter in the fifth inning with two outs and Boston down 1-0 - first Payton Tolle, then Sonny Gray. Both times, the Yankees made Erik Miller pay.
Several Red Sox players, including Gray and Willson Contreras, have since questioned Tracy’s approach and the way the team is being run. That sort of chatter doesn’t surface in the Yankees’ clubhouse. Boone’s group may not be perfect, but it is steady.
Even the Aaron Judge situation seemed to reinforce that. Boone handled Judge’s irritation over being left off the Wild Card roster without turning it into a power struggle. He stayed in control without making a spectacle of it.
A former Yankee texted recently that the exchange showed how much Boone has grown into the job. “All (Boone) said was, ‘We don’t expect Judge to be back,’” the former player said.
“That’s Boone’s way of telling the rest of the players, ‘It’s time for you to step up. Don’t sit here waiting for Judge to rescue you.’
It was a positive message.”
And the roster has responded. The Yankees are a stable group, even Jose Caballero - once viewed as a rogue element - has settled in, and Cashman deserves a lot of the credit for putting this 93-win team together.
The bullpen has been airtight. The trade for closer David Bednar has worked exactly as hoped.
Promoting George Lombard Jr. this summer instead of waiting until September or 2027 was the right move. The rotation, now healthy, is the best the Yankees have had since 2009.
Then there’s Max Fried, the final piece, and Cashman’s fingerprints are all over that 2025 free-agent signing.
If the Yankees beat the Rays, they’re back in the AL Championship Series. Win that, and they’ll return to the World Series for the second time in three years. And maybe, just maybe, that’s the point where the critics finally have to admit Cashman and Boone had something to do with it.
As for my friend? I’m giving him a chance to admit he was wrong all along.
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Still, there is reason for Yankee optimism, starting with the possibility that Aaron Judge returns for the series. The clubs just saw plenty of each other not long ago, too, and New York took three of four at home in that season set, a reminder that even with the Rays holding the higher seed, the matchup may not feel nearly as one-sided as the schedule suggests. [Read more 🡒]