I feel hungover this morning and I didn’t have a single drink during Wednesday’s Game 2 of the Wild Card Series. My head is foggy, I’m tired, I have a minor headache and just feel like lying in bed all day and watching Gio Urshela’s fourth-inning grand slam and amazing eighth-inning double play on an endless loop. After thinking for a while about why I feel like I drank a case of Pinstripe Pilsners this morning, I realized it’s because of Aaron Boone.

Today should be a happy day to be a Yankees fan. The Yankees swept the Indians in a best-of-3, beat the best pitcher in baseball in Game 1 and overcame an early four-run deficit and a one-run ninth-inning deficit in Game 2 to do so. It should be a day to be happy the Yankees’ season has been extended and they will play in San Diego against the Rays next week. It should be happy because the Yankees are one step closer to reaching the World Series.

I’m happy. I’m happy the Yankees are going to the ALDS (though not so happy they will have to see the Rays there). But I’m not happy about how they got there. I’m not happy with the way Game 2 was managed, and I’m not happy Boone’s ineptitude as manager was once again masked by the Yankees’ offense in what might have been his worst game as Yankees manager. It’s impossible to say if Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS or last night’s Game 2 were Boone’s worst night on the job. The difference is the Yankees came back on Wednesday night and weren’t able to two years ago after his starting pitcher didn’t know what time the game started and after he regrettably left his starter in for too long before going to the wrong bullpen arm.

I have said countless times that Boone is the Yankees’ biggest obstacle to winning a championship. It’s not the Rays or Astros or A’s or White Sox or Dodgers. It’s their own manager. He’s that bad at his job that he is the single biggest threat to the Yankees ending their championship drought. When I said this throughout the regular season, Boone’s supporters have told me he has to manage differently in the regular season than the postseason and that once it’s the postseason, he won’t make the same decisions he does throughout the year. They tell me he has to lose battles to win the war. Except when he gets to the war, he has no idea how to win it because he’s lost so many battles. For all the nonsensical decisions Boone made throughout this season and his first two regular seasons and postseasons as Yankees manager, Wednesday night was as bad as it has ever been watching him stumble his way through a game.

Masahiro Tanaka didn’t have it in Game 2. I truly believe he might have had it, but because he had to take the mound in what appeared to be hurricane-like conditions in the first inning, he couldn’t get a true grip on the ball, causing him to miss his spots and location. This led to back-to-back doubles and a 1-0 lead for the Indians. Tanaka then had to sit for more than a half hour before retaking the mound, and he allowed three more runs. The entire handling of the weather and pre-game rain delay and first-inning rain delay was a disgrace. It was every bit as bad as the way the weather was handled in Game 1 of the 2011 ALDS, which had a hand in the Yankees losing that series to the Tigers. If the Yankees were to lose Game 2 and then lose Game 3 and the series, the Game 2 rain would have become the new midges.

Boone rightfully took Tanaka out in the fifth inning. He should have taken him out much earlier. He had labored through four-plus innings, throwing 77 pitches and left the game with runners on first and second and no outs. Boone could have let Chad Green start the fifth inning, so he had a clean inning to work with, and if Boone had let Green start the inning, he would have needed to get 15 outs from a completely rested bullpen: two innings from Green, an inning from Adam Ottavino and an inning from Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman, or something close to that. Though that was before we found out the Yankees aren’t going to use Ottavino in anything other than a lopsided game, meaning the bullpen circle of trust from last season has now lost Dellin Betances, Tommy Kahnle and Ottavino, leaving only Green, Britton and Chapman. Boone decided to not go to Green to start the fifth, and winded up needing to get 15 outs from his bullpen anyway after unsuccessfully trying to steal a few more outs from Tanaka.

Green wasn’t at his best. In Wednesday’s Game 1 Thoughts, I wrote, “Asking four relievers to all have it on the same night is a lot harder to expect” instead of one starting pitcher and it was coming to fruition. Green allowed a game-tying double as soon as he came into the game in the fifth, before settling down. He then gave up another two hits in the sixth (though one was a blooper and the other was a grounder) before being removed for Zack Britton, who immediately got Francisco Lindor to ground into an inning-ending double play. Boone’s decision to bring in Britton was the right move and the only right move he made in the game. He finally separated Britton from the eighth inning and brought in his best reliever with the game on the line.

In the seventh inning, the Yankees had an 8-6 lead when Luke Voit drew a leadoff walk. Voit remained at first base while Giancarlo Stanton struck out, and he remained there for the first two pitches of Gio Urshela’s at-bat. With a 1-1 count on Urshela, Boone called time and had Tyler Wade enter the game as a pinch runner for Voit. Was Voit hurt? Did the “foot stuff” he has been dealing finally grow bad enough he could no longer play? The only reason to pinch run Wade for Voit there would be if Voit was injured badly enough he couldn’t stay in the game. Otherwise, Boone was removing his cleanup hitter and possibly the AL MVP from a postseason game with only a two-run lead and three innings remaining. Wade’s time in the game was useless. He stayed at first for Urshela’s at-bat, never attempting to steal second and the inning ended with him accomplishing nothing. He then played second base for the bottom of the seventh with DJ LeMahieu moving over to first base.

Britton got two outs on eight pitches to begin the bottom half of the seventh. He then lost the strike zone and walked Carlos Santana on five pitches and Franmil Reyes on five pitches. Indians acting manager Sandy Alomar Jr. decided to pinch hit for his best hitter, the left-handed Josh Naylor, with the right-handed Jordan Luplow. Even though Britton can easily handle right-handed hitters, Boone had to one-up Alomar’s idiotic move with one of his own: going to Jonathan Loaisiga. Rather than use Ottavino, who the Yankees gave $27 million to to retire right-handed batters, Boone left Ottavino in the bullpen, showing he has no faith in him, and opting to use someone with much lesser ability in Loaisiga. Loaisiga got ahead 1-2 on Luplow before allowing a two-run, game-tying double to straightaway center. The score was tied and Voit would no longer be part of the game.

In the top of the eighth, with runners on the corners and two outs, Wade was due up. There was no way Wade could hit for himself, so Boone went to his bench and finally used Clint Frazier, who should have been starting. Unfortunately, Frazier struck out against a right-handed reliever. The Yankees had lost their reserve infielder and their fourth outfielder in one, three-pitch at-bat. Boone now had to remove Frazier from the game and insert Mike Ford to play first base, so LeMahieu could move back to second.

After retiring only one of three batters in the seventh, Loaisiga walked the Indians’ 9-hitter Delion DeShields to begin the eighth. Boone stayed in the dugout. He stayed in the dugout and let Loaisiga face Lindor, who he walked on four pitches. Finally, Boone had seen enough. After back-to-back walks to start the eighth inning of a tied playoff game and after allowing five of six batters to reach base, Boone decided to remove Loaisiga. Boone then gave the ball to Aroldis Chapman. If Boone was willing to use Chapman in the inning, why wasn’t he in to begin the inning? That’s right, Boone was trying to steal outs in the eighth inning of a tied postseason game. It was the most irresponsible and inexcusable act by the Yankees manager in a game full of them. It was a move he has done so many times in so many games as Yankees manager with it backfiring nearly every time. It was a move all of his defenders and supporters have always said he would never do in the playoffs. Well, he did it. There’s no difference between regular-season Boone and postseason Boone. He’s the same person and the same awful manager, and Yankees fans who don’t realize this should be embarrassed. Chapman promptly gave up a flyball single to give the Indians the lead before getting out of the inning. The Yankees now trailed 9-8 and were three outs away from having to start J.A. Happ with their season on the line all because of their manager.

The Yankees loaded the bases with no outs in the ninth thanks to a walk, a soft single up the middle and an infield single back to the pitcher. That brought up the left-handed Brett Gardner to face the left-handed Brad Hand. It was a perfect spot to use the right-handed Frazier. But he was unavailable after Boone had burned his availability earlier to bat for Wade because he inexplicably removed Voit from the game for Wade. Gardner struck out.

Thankfully, Gary Sanchez hit a sacrfiice fly to tie the game, and thankfully, LeMahieu did what he always does by getting a hit with runners in scoring position to give the Yankees the lead in their eventual 10-9 win. The longest nine-inning game in postseason history ended with a Yankees win and a trip to the ALDS to face the rival Rays. I should have been ecstatic with the result, but it felt like the Yankees lost. The team deserved to win, but Boone deserved to lose.

After the game, not a single media member questioned his idiotic decisions. His offense bailed him out and the media let him off the hook, like they always do. Rather than call him out for a litany of illogical choices, the media only cared to ask Boone about what his team’s sweep and comeback in Game 2 said about them, as if that’s in any way a good question to ask. Not a single person questioned Boone about any of the long list of bad decisions he made.

Boone never deserved to be manager of the New York Yankees, and has done nothing in three regular seasons and now three postseasons to prove he has improved or progressed in the role. His inexperience and decision making is exposed as much in October of 2020 as it was in April of 2018.

In Wednesday’s Game 1 Thoughts, I wrote:

The Yankees’ offense and Cole took Boone completely out of the game, and kept him the dugout, chewing his gum and adjusting his mask. That’s where Boone needs to be and what he needs to be doing. The less Boone has to think and make decisions in high-leverage situations, the better off the Yankees will be. Inevitably, there will come a time this postseason when Boone will have a say on the outcome, and hopefully when the time comes, he will make the right decision.

The time came in the very next game and Boone wasn’t prepared or up to the challenge to properly navigate his team to a win. The Yankees don’t have four Gerrit Coles in their rotation to easily get them the postseason. They have one Cole and on the days he doesn’t pitch, Boone will likely be heavily involved in the outcome of the games. If he manages the way he did on Wednesday in Game 2, there won’t be many postseason games for him to manage this October.

After the game, Boone couldn’t stop smiling and giving small laughs in his media session, saying “I’m 47 years old, I’ve watched a lot of baseball … and I don’t know how you top that one.” You would never know Boone has watched a lot of baseball or has spent his entire life around Major League Baseball by the way he makes decisions in baseball games. I would like to think Boone was smiling and laughing because he knew he got extremely lucky with the result of the game due to his managing, but I would be wrong to think so. There is a zero percent chance Boone thinks he did anything wrong in Game 2. Boone truly believes his decisions were all the right ones and because the Yankees won, they are justified. This is the same person who defended his decisions in Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS, so there’s no way he thinks anything other than that the Yankees won because of his managing.

Yes, the Yankees still have a season despite Boone’s decisions. Just because the Yankees won Game 2 and won the series, doesn’t erase Boone’s decisions or make them acceptable. It just means there will be more opportunties for him this season to instill the same foolish in-game decisions and strategies he has wrongly used his entire time as Yankees manager.

The Yankees have a chance to avenge their regular-season disappointment against the Rays by beating them in the postseason. It won’t be easy with the Rays’ rotation and bullpen and it won’t be easy with the biggest mismatch between the two teams: Boone vs. Kevin Cash.

Two down, 11 to go.

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I spent the 2020 regular season fearing a best-of-3 against the Indians. I wanted no part of Shane Bieber and the rest of the Cleveland rotation. I envisioned the Triple Crown-winning pitcher shutting down the Yankees in Game 1 of a best-of-3 and pushing them to the brink of elimination after one game. I spent a lot of time worrying about Bieber and the Indians for no reason.

When DJ LeMahieu hit Bieber’s third pitch of the game the other way for a single, I felt good. For two months, I constantly kept an eye on the Indians’ place in the standings, worrying about Bieber in a game like Tuesday’s, thinking he might be the right-handed Cliff Lee with his control and shutting the Yankees down the same way Lee did. LeMahieu’s leadoff single gave me immediate confidence.

When Aaron Judge hit Bieber’s fourth pitch over the fence, I thought the game was over. Bieber hadn’t experienced adversity on the mound all season and has experienced limited adversity in his career. His expression after Judge set the tone was that of someone who had only known dominating and who never expected for a second he wouldn’t once again dominate on Tuesday. It was very reminiscent of the way the Yankees knocked around Corey Kluber on the same field three years ago in a season in which he led the league in wins, ERA and WHIP and won the Cy Young award.

The Yankees couldn’t have started the postseason and a best-of-3 series any better. Even in an ideal world where I could write the script for how a Yankees postseason game would play out, I wouldn’t have been able to write up the way Game 1 played out. It was too perfect. Four pitches into the game, the Yankees had a two-run lead, and they kept tacking on to their lead, something they failed to do all regular season. They added a run in the third, two in the fourth, another two in the fifth, four in the seventh and one in the ninth. They rocked baseball’s best regular-season pitcher, putting 11 runners on base in 4 2/3 innings against him and forcing the Indians’ bullpen to get 13 outs. They received production from the entire lineup as every starter other than Kyle Higashioka scored a run and every starter other than Aaron Hicks recorded a hit. Gerrit Cole gave the Yankees seven remarkable innings (7 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 13 K, 1 HR) and the Yankees were able to get the final six outs from Luis Cessa, winning a postseason game without having to use any of their top relievers. Too perfect.

It’s been a long time since the Yankees went into a postseason series having a No. 1 starter who could go toe-to-toe with their opponent’s No. 1 starter. Last season, they couldn’t match Cole or Justin Verlander. In 2018, they couldn’t match Chris Sale. In 2017, they couldn’t match Verlander. Now it’s different. Now they have Cole, and while Bieber had the better season, Cole proved he is more able to rise to the occasion, turning his ability up to another octave with the stakes as high as he commented on them being. Cole was outstanding, striking out 13 Indians over seven innings and never for a moment did it seem as though the Indians might actually get to him. He gave the Yankees length, protected their early two-run lead and prevented Aaron Boone from having to think and kept Adam Ottavino, Chad Green, Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman in the bullpen. Cole did what an ace with his reputation is supposed to do in October.

Yes, I vehemently disagreed with the Yankees’ Game 1 lineup, and while it worked out, I still wouldn’t use it in Game 2, but the Yankees will. Over the last few weeks, I said if Clint Frazier wasn’t going to be in the postseason lineup then I would actively root against the Yankees as hard as I always root for them. I refrained from taking that drastic measure on Tuesday night and never really had to question the Yankees’ lineup decisions because Judge gave the team an early lead, Gleyber Torres extended that lead and Cole did exactly what he was supposed to do for seven innings.

The result of the game doesn’t change the fact that Hicks shouldn’t be batting third, Brett Gardner shouldn’t be in the lineup over Clint Frazier and Kyle Higashioka shouldn’t be playing over Gary Sanchez.

Hicks had two walks and two strikeouts in the game. He reached base in two of his five plate appearances by the only way he knows how to reach base. It’s nice that Hicks scored two runs off his walks, but it’s not like he had to work for those walks. In both of the plate appearances resulting in walks, Hicks didn’t make contact on any swing. He didn’t even need to go up to the plate with a bat because four balls were thrown before three strikes, not because he fouled off good pitches or grinded out and won a 10-pitch at-bat. He was fortunate that Bieber’s impeccable control was off and that Adam Cimber isn’t any good.

Gardner didn’t deserve to play. He didn’t earn it. For a player whose entire career has been a collection of only extremely hot and extremely cold streaks with no consistency, Gardner’s hot streak to end the season somehow trumped everything Frazier had done for the Yankees this season. Ironically, Boone and the Yankees have admittedly said they don’t believe in players getting “hot” and they don’t believe in hot streaks, but Gardner was only in the lineup on Tuesday because of his most recent hot streak. Gardner was able to hit an opposite-field double off Bieber for his biggest Yankees moment since his single off Cody Allen in Game 5 of the 2017 ALDS, and he did add a two-run home run off Cimber, who isn’t very good, and even added a single off Oliver Perez, who is somehow still in the league. If Boone and the Yankees were willing to start Gardner against Bieber, it would have made no sense for them to then not start him for this entire series since the Indians would only be using right-handed starting pitchers. It would have made no sense for the Yankees to replace Gardner with Frazier in Game 2 given their decision in Game 1, but I truly think they were going to play Frazier in Game 2 until Gardner’s Game 1 performance. Now Gardner will be the starting left fielder against all right-handed starting pitchers this postseason.

The Yankees’ lineup worked out in Game 1 because the team’s stars played like stars in the game, not because of the decisions the Yankees made. Game 1 was was relaxing and enjoyable, a rare combination for a postseason game. What made it even more relaxting and enjoyable was that Boone never had to insert himself into the game. The Yankees’ offense and Cole took Boone completely out of the game, and kept him the dugout, chewing his gum and adjusting his mask. That’s where Boone needs to be and what he needs to be doing. The less Boone has to think and make decisions in high-leverage situations, the better off the Yankees will be. Inevitably, there will come a time this postseason when Boone will have a say on the outcome, and hopefully when the time comes, he will make the right decision.

The Yankees now have to go just 1-1 in two games against an Indians team that has already used and wasted their best card in order to advance to the ALDS. The Yankees have a completely rested bullpen and an offense coming off the team’s most impressive postseason offensive performance since Game 1 of the 2019 ALCS. They are set up as perfectly as any Yankees fan could dream of for Game 2 and they will be giving the ball to postseason legend Masahiro Tanaka on Wednesday night to end the series.

No Yankees fan could ask for a better pitcher in this situation with a chance for the Yankees to advance to the ALDS and into the bubble than Tanaka. I have complete faith and trust in Tanaka. He has never let the Yankees down in a postseason start, and I don’t expect him to in Game 2.

In what will be a rematch of Game 3 of the 2017 ALDS between Tanaka and Carlos Carrasco, the one thing that worries me is that Tanaka hasn’t given the Yankees much length this season and they haven’t let him give them much length this season. There’s a good chance Tanaka pitches as well as he always does in October for five innings and then Boone starts to decide how to get the last 12 outs. Boone will be quick to turn to his bullpen in this game with them being rested and a chance to close out the series and then four days off before the ALDS. I expect Tanaka to have it on Wednesday. Asking four relievers to all have it on the same night is a lot harder to expect.

One down, 12 to go.

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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!