Olney: Aaron Boone has always done this job his way — will it be enough?
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Buster Olney, ESPN Senior Writer
The visiting manager’s office in Dodger Stadium is about the size of a small laundry room, and with nine broadcasters stuffed into this space before Game 2 of the World Series, Aaron Boone had to step around toes as he walked in. “Hi, y’all,” the New York Yankees manager said pleasantly.
About 18 hours before, Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman had clubbed the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history, an early body blow for the Yankees in a best-of-seven series. Boone was asked how he was doing. “I feel all right,” he replied evenly.
Around the world, Yankees fans lambasted Boone’s bullpen choices, his baseball acumen and his stewardship of the team — as they often have in his seven-season tenure as manager.
After Game 1, Derek Jeter, Boone’s former teammate and now a Fox analyst, was among those to do the ripping, questioning Boone’s decision to take out Gerrit Cole after 88 pitches. Others criticized Boone’s choice of Nestor Cortes — who surrendered Freeman’s grand slam in his first appearance in 37 days — over reliever Tim Hill.
In his office before Game 2, Boone reviewed his choices, matter-of-factly walking through his reasoning — even volunteering his own doubt about a decision that hadn’t really been raised by fans or media. He wondered if he should’ve asked Luke Weaver, who had accumulated 19 pitches by the end of the ninth inning, to at least start the bottom of the 10th inning. “That’s the one …” before his voice trailed off.
With the Yankees now down 2-0 to the Dodgers in the World Series, it seems inevitable that when Boone is introduced at Yankee Stadium before Game 3 on Monday, there will be a refrain of boos. It is likely to be repeated whenever he walks onto the field to affect pitching changes. Long before Boone’s tenure, this has been the reality for any Yankees manager or general manager. The mob reflex mirrors the response of an icon of the franchise, the late owner George Steinbrenner: If you lose, every choice you make will be shredded.
The intensity of the response heightens the inherent pressure of these front-facing Yankees jobs, and the cumulative effect can bend or even warp a personality. Billy Martin’s health seemed to worsen during his five separate tenures as Yankees’ manager. When Joe Torre’s book about the Yankees years was published, the criticism of Cashman hardened the general manager — compelled him to do the work more forcefully, rather than try to placate, as he often did with Torre. Joe Girardi, Boone’s predecessor, felt responsible for everyone around him because of the looming possibility there would be firings. Looking back, he says he might have put too much pressure on himself.
But some of Boone’s colleagues, as well as his brother Bret, say they believe that Aaron is mostly unchanged through years in this managerial slow cooker, with his typically positive demeanor and gregariousness resolute, even in the worst moments.
“It’s almost like he’s born for this,” Cashman said. “He disperses credit and takes blame. He keeps his cool in the dugout, because of his demeanor. … This job will harden you and make you do things you wouldn’t do. Sometimes you go along to get along, and you start to change. None of that’s ever happened. He is still true to who he is. He’s the exact same person we hired. We got one of the good ones.”
In a phone interview before the World Series, Boone said, “I’ve always envisioned that I’d be able to handle that, going in. I still feel the same way. That’s not to say there haven’t been some hard moments or tough times that you go through — moments where it gets a little lonely. But overall, it’s been incredibly rewarding, and for the most part, I love it.”
Girardi recalls that when he served as the bench coach for Joe Torre, he thought he had a feel for the challenges of being the Yankees manager.
“But you really don’t, until you’ve actually been through it,” he said, thinking of his stint from 2008-2017 — a period during which they last won a championship. “And I think you have to go through both sides of it to really understand it — the good, and the bad. As you go through it more, you understand the pressure the players are under — all of the coverage they get — and you understand the importance of being positive and supporting the players, no matter what.”
Because while playing a sport filled with failure, the Yankees are often shrouded in negative feedback. They will be cheered at the outset of Game 3, and that fervor of Yankees fans can wear on opposing players. But if the Yankees begin to struggle, the frustration in the stands flows freely — and the person responsible for lineup and pitching choices is going to hear it. That was once Girardi, and now it is Aaron Boone.
“I think he does a fantastic job, because he’s always under scrutiny,” Girardi said. “Because that’s the job in New York, unless you win a championship. You could overachieve with a team that people thought would win 90 games, and you win 92-93 games — and the response is, ‘Yeah, but they didn’t win a World Series.'”
Cashman said he’s not sure how much Boone listens to talk radio, or if he absorbs the fan and media criticism. “I don’t get the sense that it guides him in any way, shape or form,” he said. “He pours everything he has into [the work], and then lets it go.”
Bret Boone said, “He’s the same dude … He hasn’t changed one iota. As a 51-year-old man, he is the same person as he was when he was a kid.”
Aaron has been ejected by umpires more than any of his peers in recent years, and when these eruptions occur, their mother will call Bret and ask him, “What is your brother doing?” They will laugh together, because through the lens of time they see him responding as he did as a child when Bret — four years older than Aaron — would rob his little brother of Wiffle ball glory by ruling a home run as a foul ball. Aaron would react in the same way he does to umpires: indignant, with outward expression of being unfairly wronged.
Bret Boone sees much of his father in Aaron. Bob Boone, now 76, was respected by teammates in his long career as a big league player and manager for being straightforward, reliable.
“High character, honest to a fault,” said Bret, who recalled how friends in the game asked him why, as a player in the winter of 2004, Aaron Boone had volunteered to the Yankees that he had blown out his knee playing basketball — a violation of his contract. “That’s just the way he is,” Bret responded.
Bret said that like their father, Aaron will go to work very early in the day — “He’s a grinder, just like Dad’ — and Bret encourages his brother to back off some. “Sometimes you got to get to the yard late,” Bret said, “and throw it against the wall and just let the players play.”
But there’s another reason Boone arrives early. He likes being at the park, with his colleagues, working to solve problems. Brad Ausmus is at the end of his first year as bench coach of the Yankees, and before this, he really didn’t know Boone beyond pleasantries exchanged as opposing players earlier in their lives.
During spring training, he shared a condo with Boone, and he remembers Boone greeting him over morning coffee with the familiar fan chant: “LET’S GO YANKEES.” When they drove to the ballpark together, the music was always the same. “‘Eighties,” Ausmus said. “It’s always ’80s.” Stevie Nicks, the Pretenders, Don Henley. Boone has long maintained that if he were left on a desert island and he could listen to only one band, that would be Hall and Oates. When Boone drives his daughter Bella, she will eventually ask him, with hope: “Can we listen to my music now?”
In describing Boone, Ausmus’ observation was simple: “He’s kind of a goofball,” Ausmus said, laughing.
Boone is genial and respectful in his exchanges with reporters, but that part of him that abhors unfairness — like those foul balls wrongly called by his older brother — has come out occasionally. During the American League Championship Series, the Yankees blew a lead in the ninth inning of Game 3 against Cleveland, when it appeared they were on the verge of taking a three games-to-none lead. A reporter asked a question that seemed to suggest that perhaps the Yankees’ staff assumed they would win the game: “Do you feel like the bench might’ve felt ‘We got this in the bag,’ so to speak?”
Boone snapped impatiently, “Come on. No. ‘Got this in the bag’? Stop it with that.”
Boone has a de facto sounding board. His father stays up to watch the Yankees game, and they have spoken afterward, as Aaron decompresses. He invited Joe Torre to spring training, and the two exchange texts. He shares conversations with Jim Leyland, who was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame last summer. He’ll have breakfast with bullpen coach Mike Harkey.
In the meeting with broadcasters before Game 2, Boone replayed some of his decisions with that room. He had thought about taking out Cole after the sixth inning, he said, after conversations with Cole, because he sensed the pitcher was close to spent. He stuck with Cole, and after Teoscar Hernandez opened the bottom of the seventh with an eight-pitch at-bat that concluded with a single, Boone went to the mound without making a motion to the bullpen, leaning toward removing Cole.
If Cole had pushed back and made a case to stay in, would Boone have left him in?
“Possibly,” Boone said. But Cole didn’t, so the manager pulled him after 88 pitches — the decision that drew scrutiny from Jeter after the Yankees lost.
In these moments, he leans on that sounding board, on his family — and mostly, on his own sense of self.
“Through everything, even through the lowest of moments,” Boone said, “I think I have a healthy perspective,” he said.
These days, he’ll need it.
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Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani jogged off the pitcher’s mound and leaned against the dugout railing while strapping on his elbow guard and batting gloves. He was thrown a towel to wipe the sweat off his face, then walked to the batter’s box to face San Diego Padres ace Dylan Cease without taking any practice swings.
With that, Ohtani began his quest to once again do what many in the sport consider impossible.
Ohtani made his pitching debut from Dodger Stadium on Monday, giving up a run in his lone inning of work, then struck out in his first plate appearance as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ designated hitter, marking the first time he has pitched and hit in a game since Aug. 23, 2023. He would eventually finish 2-4 with two RBIs in his club’s 6-3 victory.
Ohtani is close to 21 months removed from a second repair of his right ulnar collateral ligament but faced hitters only three times before essentially rejoining the Dodgers’ rotation, his last session, from Petco Park in San Diego last Tuesday, spanning three simulated innings and 44 pitches.
Ohtani communicated to the Dodgers that facing hitters hours before games, then cooling off and having to ramp back up to DH later that night, was more taxing on his body than doing both simultaneously, prompting him to return to pitching sooner than expected. These initial starts will basically function as the continuation of Ohtani’s pitching rehab. On Monday, he was basically utilized as an opener.
Ohtani reached 99.9 mph and 100.2 mph with his fastball but also uncorked a wild pitch while utilizing 28 pitches to record the first three outs. Fernando Tatis Jr. led off with a bloop single and Luis Arraez followed with a line-drive single. Ohtani should have recorded a strikeout of Manny Machado, who went around on a two-strike swing. But first-base umpire Ryan Blakney ruled otherwise, bringing the count to 2-2 and later prompting a sacrifice fly to score the game’s first run.
Ohtani followed by inducing groundouts to Gavin Sheets and Xander Bogaerts, and with that, his pitching debut was over.
The Dodgers hope it’s the first of many starts.
Ohtani, 30, functioned as a transformative two-way player from 2021 to 2023, winning two unanimous MVPs and also finishing as the runner-up to Aaron Judge. On offense, Ohtani slashed .277/.379/.585 with 124 home runs and 57 stolen bases. On the mound, he posted a 2.84 ERA with 542 strikeouts and 143 walks in 428⅓ innings.
Top Boston Red Sox officials said the team traded Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants on Sunday because they could not find “alignment” with their star slugger, whose relationship with the organization degraded after he declined a request by the team to switch positions for the second time this season.
In a 40-minute media availability Monday night, Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow defended the decision to trade the 28-year-old Devers, a three-time All-Star in the second season of a 10-year, $313.5 million contract. The deal, which came after a sweep of the rival New York Yankees extended Boston’s winning streak to five games, roiled Red Sox fans still embittered by Boston trading future Hall of Famer Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020.
Though Kennedy and Breslow acknowledged the disappointment in the trade that netted Boston left-handed starter Kyle Harrison, outfield prospect James Tibbs III, right-handed reliever Jordan Hicks and right-hander Jose Bello, they noted the financial flexibility the deal gives the organization, with San Francisco taking on the remaining $254 million of Devers’ contract.
Pointing to the ability to add talent as the July 31 trade deadline approaches, Breslow said: “This is in no way signifying a waving of the white flag on 2025. We are as committed as we were six months ago to putting a winning team on the field, to competing for the division and making a deep postseason run.”
He also added, “I do think that there is a real chance that at the end of the season we’re looking back and we’ve won more games than we otherwise would’ve.”
At 38-36 following a win Monday night against Seattle, the Red Sox are in fourth place in the AL East but hold the final AL wild-card playoff spot. Their new-look lineup featured first baseman Abraham Toro hitting in Devers’ typical No. 2 spot and rookie outfielder Roman Anthony, who hit his first big league home run Monday, batting third.
Devers, who had been with the Red Sox organization since signing out of the Dominican Republic at 16, went from a fundamental part of Boston’s future to the latest ex-Red Sox player in a matter of months. The organization had spent the winter ensuring Devers would remain at third base, the position he had played his whole career. When Boston signed third baseman Alex Bregman on the eve of spring training, Devers was asked to move to designated hitter. He refused before eventually relenting.
A season-ending injury to first baseman Triston Casas in early May compelled Breslow to inquire about Devers’ willingness to move to first. He spurned the idea and criticized the organization, prompting owner John Henry, Kennedy and Breslow to fly to Kansas City, where the Red Sox were playing, and talk through their issues.
Despite the strong play of Toro and Romy Gonzalez at first, the issues persisted. Though neither Kennedy nor Breslow would expound specifically on where there was misalignment between the parties, Devers rejecting a second position switch soured an organization that gave him the largest deal in franchise history.
“We had certain expectations that went with that contract,” Kennedy said. “And when we came to the conclusion that we did not have a full alignment, we moved on.”
Breslow said the Red Sox talked about Devers with multiple teams — and two rival general managers told ESPN on Monday that Devers’ name came up in conversation about potential deals. Ultimately, Boston pulled off the polarizing trade with San Francisco, which agreed to inherit the entirety of Devers’ contract and in exchange sent back a package of talent that paled in production compared to Devers.
Over nine seasons with the Red Sox, Devers hit .279/.349/.510 with 215 home runs and 696 RBIs in 1,053 games. He represented the last player from Boston’s most recent World Series-winning team in 2018 — a group to which Kennedy and Breslow alluded when emphasizing the organization’s goals in moving a player who was hitting .272/.401/.504 this season.
“I do think that there is a real chance that at the end of the season, we’re looking back and we’ve won more games than we otherwise would’ve.”
Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow
“As we think about the identity and the culture and the environment that is created by great teams,” Breslow said, “there was something amiss here, and it was something that we needed to act decisively to course correct.”
Said Kennedy: “We did what we felt was in the best interest of the Red Sox on and off the field to win championships and to continue to ferociously and relentlessly pursue a culture that we want everyone in that clubhouse to embody and doing everything in their power night in and night out to help the team.”
The two continued returning to the word “alignment” — Kennedy used it nine times, Breslow five — to rationalize the deal. They pointed to allowing the team’s young core — which includes Anthony and infielders Kristian Campbell and Marcelo Mayer, all of whom were among the top 15 prospects in MLB entering the season — to receive regular playing time as a benefit, with more at-bats available in the DH slot.
“I understand why the initial reaction would be that it’d be tough to sit here and say when you move a player of Raffy’s caliber, when you take that bat out of the lineup, how could I sit here and say that we’re a better team?” Breslow said. “And I acknowledge on paper we’re not going to have the same lineup that we did, but this isn’t about the game that is played on paper. This is about the game that’s played on the field and ultimately about winning the most games that we can. And in order to do that, we’re trying to put together the most functional and complete team that we can.”
The Red Sox have squandered the benefit of the doubt with a fan base that saw the team win four championships from 2004 to 2018. Dealing Betts for a paltry return remains a sticking point with a wide swath of fans, and one of Breslow’s first deals after taking over following the firing of his predecessor, Chaim Bloom, was trading left-hander Chris Sale to Atlanta, where he won the National League Cy Young Award last year.
“I’ll put our record up against anybody else’s in Major League Baseball over the last 24 years,” Kennedy said. “We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve built here. We’ve got more trophies and banners to show for it than any other organization in Major League Baseball.”
Saying that Devers “means so much to that group, means so much to the organization, to the city of Boston,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora nevertheless stood behind the deal, saying he believes Harrison (who was optioned to Triple-A) and Hicks (on the injured list) will help the team this season.
“We’ve got to keep going. That’s the bottom line,” Cora said. “We put ourselves in a good spot. We have played good baseball for an extended period of time. Now we have to do it without Raffy, but at the same time, we added some pieces that we do believe are going to help us.”
Breslow and Kennedy each expressed disappointment over the handling of the Devers situation, with Breslow saying, “I need to own things I could have done better,” particularly in communicating. They agreed, though, that the decisiveness with which they agreed to deal Devers — regardless of the public outcry — was done in service of something larger.
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — Hours before making his season debut, Yankees designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton was in the batter’s box inside an empty Yankee Stadium on Monday afternoon hitting off a high-speed pitching machine. Atop his list of preparation priorities was being ready to handle elite velocity. That, he believes, will best determine whether he will succeed in his return from tendon injuries in both elbows.
Stanton’s first test, though it came in a loss, was a success: The slugger went 2-for-4 with three hard-hit balls and a double in an 11-inning, 1-0 defeat to the Los Angeles Angels.
“With not as many at-bats under my belt, that’s going to be the most important,” Stanton said of hitting velocity. “Just make sure I’m ready. See the ball early. Normal things you would say midseason, but just emphasize it a little more now.”
Stanton was sidelined through Sunday, missing the Yankees’ first 70 games. He played through a “high level” of joint pain in both elbows in 2024, including during the postseason when he smashed seven home runs in 14 games and was named American League Championship Series MVP, but he was shut down from swinging a bat in January until late March, delaying his readiness for the season.
Batting fifth Monday in his first major league action since Game 5 of the 2024 World Series, Stanton received a standing ovation from the home crowd when he was introduced for his first plate appearance. He then hacked away.
He swung at the first pitch he saw — a 96-mph sinker from Angels right-hander Jose Soriano — and cracked a 101.5 mph groundout to the third baseman.
He roped a 111.1 mph line drive single to left field in his second at-bat for his first hit of 2025 and struck out swinging in his third at-bat before clobbering a 102.9 mph leadoff double down the left-field line in the ninth inning.
Stanton’s night ended there when Jasson Dominguez replaced him at second base as a pinch-runner. The Yankees wound up spoiling the scoring opportunity. They have gone 20 innings without scoring a run, a skid that goes back to the ninth inning of a loss to the Boston Red Sox on Saturday.
“It’s great to be back,” Stanton said. “Obviously, want to win, but it’s good to be back out there. I saw the ball pretty well besides one at-bat. So we’re just working on that, making sure my timing’s geared up and get rolling.”
Stanton, 35, was eligible for reinstatement from the 60-day injured list in late May, but the Yankees, not desperate for offense and with multiple choices for DH, did not rush him back.
He began a rehab assignment last week, appearing in three games over consecutive days for Double-A Somerset after an extended period taking swings off machines and in live batting practice. He went 3-for-11 with a double, four RBIs, a walk and three strikeouts for Somerset.
The Yankees have 16 games over the next 16 days, but manager Aaron Boone does not expect Stanton, whose 429 career home runs lead all active players, to play every day. Stanton’s availability will partly depend on his next-day recovery after a game.
“I would think that things might come up from time to time and that could play into different things on a given day if you feel like it’s best to give him a day,” Boone said. “But I think he’s built some good momentum here over the last couple of months with it. The strength in his hands and things like that has returned in a good way so certainly something we’ll pay attention to but feel like we’re in a pretty good spot.”
Boone has the luxury to play it on the safer side with an offense that thrived without Stanton, the 2017 National League MVP. The Yankees entered Monday ranked second in the majors with a 123 weighted runs created plus and .794 OPS with Ben Rice, Aaron Judge and Dominguez primarily cycling through the DH spot.
That’s where things become complicated for New York. Stanton’s return will, as it stands, present a daily lineup puzzle for Boone to solve — not only in the DH slot, but in the outfield where he has Judge plus three players (Dominguez, Cody Bellinger and Trent Grisham) for two spots (center field and left field). Decisions will mostly come down to workload and matchups.
Paul Goldschmidt, another former MVP, and Domínguez, one of baseball’s top prospects entering the season, were the odd players out Monday, though both entered the game late.
“I’ve talked to them, and we know what the goal is,” Boone said. “And right now it’s to get to the playoffs and try and win a division and then obviously from there, trying to get to and win a World Series. So, making sure we have everyone on the same page and the buy-in. And there’s going to be days when maybe a guy deserves to be in there, isn’t. Everyone’s not going to be happy about it all the time and that’s OK.”
Said Stanton: “Whatever is best for us to win, that’s important. And the guys that are going to be starting are going to come in huge pinch-hit spots. So, in that opportunity, it’s usually a chance to win a game anyway so, yeah, we’ll work with it.”
Stanton’s return perhaps most impacts Rice, who has started 43 of the Yankees’ 71 games as their DH. The second-year player, who started at first base Monday, is batting .229 with 12 home runs and a .769 OPS this season.
Boone on Monday repeated that he plans to occasionally have Rice start at catcher to alleviate the logjam and get his bat in the lineup more often.
Rice, 26, was drafted as a catcher and spent most of his minor league career behind the plate, but he has yet to start at the position for the Yankees since making his major league debut last season. Rice has tallied just 6⅔ innings behind the plate in the majors.
Austin Wells and J.C. Escarra have split time at catcher this season, with Wells starting 52 of the team’s 70 games behind the dish.
“I see him playing quite a bit,” Boone said of Rice. “Again, just kind of the matchups. As far as the catching component, I do plan on getting him back there at some point. I don’t know how frequent it would be. Because, again, I really value what J.C.’s done back there. As you’ve seen lately, I do value getting Austin his days so there’ll be a day I get him back there and that can factor into things a little bit.”
The Yankees designated utility man Pablo Reyes for assignment to make room on the active roster for Stanton.
Also Monday, Boone said right-hander Jake Cousins is scheduled to undergo Tommy John surgery Wednesday.
Cousins spent the first three years of his big league career with the Milwaukee Brewers before joining New York last season. Cousins became a significant part of New York’s bullpen, posting a 2.37 ERA across 37 games during the regular season before allowing five runs in six postseason appearances.
The Yankees expected Cousins to return before the All-Star break when he was placed on the injured list with a forearm strain to begin the season. But his recovery was stalled by a pectoral injury and he was pulled off a recent rehab assignment with elbow trouble. He is now expected to miss a significant portion of the 2026 season.
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