Yankees happy with Aaron Boone's even-keeled approach to righting ship
New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone (17) looks out of the dugout before a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, NY, on Sunday, Jul 27, 2025. Credit: Brad Penner
If the unfathomable occurs and the Yankees miss the postseason, Aaron Boone will and should get plenty of blame, along with GM Brian Cashman, their players and heck, pretty much everyone representing the Bronx other than the mascot-race giraffe at Citi Field.
It would be an epic failure for the Yankees. But we are not there yet.
On Tuesday night, they helped themselves in both the American League East and AL wild-card races with a 7-5 victory over the Rays at Yankee Stadium, and as August approaches, the manager seems more suited temperamentally than most to continue riding the waves.
Boone has insisted in his eight seasons on the job on not creating a tense clubhouse atmosphere, and he is not about to change course now.
“I often say I’m 52 years old and I was born into the 162-game season,” Boone, a third-generation major leaguer, said before Tuesday’s game. “So I know it’s grueling. Even when it’s a successful season or you have a good year, there are going to be tough moments.
“We’ve certainly not played our best and it’s been a challenge for us, over the past six weeks especially, and we know need to get through this and still hopefully become the team we expect to be and want to become.
“But it’s never easy . . . Hopefully there’s an emotional stability that you provide in this chair that I think is important.”
Emotional stability is a useful trait in most leadership positions, but baseball is particularly suited to it compared to other sports. It tends to reward calmness and punish volatility.
Tuesday’s unnecessarily scary contest was another test of the manager’s mettle.
Boone and everyone else watching endured the full Anthony Volpe Experience, a dizzying outing that by 10:30 p.m. had made Volpe the No. 2 trending topic in America on “X.”
The shortstop made his 14th error of the season on the second batter of the game, flipping the ball errantly to Jazz Chisholm Jr. and leading to two unearned runs for the Rays.
Volpe later drove in the go-ahead run to make it 4-3. His steal of third base led to a throwing error by Rays catcher Nick Fortes that allowed Volpe to score and make it 5-3.
Volpe started a crucial double play with the tying run on first base and in the top of the eighth. Then he hit a career-long 452-foot home run in the bottom of the eighth.
Then he threw a ball in the dirt on what should have been the game’s last out and Paul Goldschmidt failed to dig it out at first base. Make that 15 errors. The Rays got the tying run to second base before falling short. Yikes.
When it was over, Boone struck a balance between admitting there is a problem but being supportive.
“He’s going to grow from this, learn from it and come out on the other side,” Boone said. “We’ve got to help him get there . . . He needs to get through this.”
Players seem to appreciate Boone’s approach.
“I feel like he’s created that culture in the team of not being like, ‘This happened, we’ve got to get [upset],’” Chisholm told Newsday before the game. “He’s made it really comfortable in the clubhouse so that we can fight back. We can always get back.”
Chisholm said he “definitely would be gone” from the big leagues if he were the type of person and player who gets overly upset by short-term failure.
“I feel like it starts from the manager first,” he said. “Whatever culture you build in the clubhouse is whatever your players tend to take on. I feel like he’s built that culture and especially with ‘Cap’ (Aaron Judge) leading right behind him.”
But all that only matters if it translates to victories.
Once Thursday’s trade deadline passes, Cashman’s primary work will be done, and it will be up to Boone to push this jalopy across the finish line.
Boone said upon getting his contract extension in February that he is bothered by not winning a World Series yet. So are Yankees fans.
But yelling and screaming and kicking over bats is not the path out of this mess. Making the right decisions – and having the players back them up – is.
“He’s handled all the ups and downs, the successes and failure, the same way,” Cashman said in February. “I think that is a strength. That is a benefit.”
Makes sense. We shall see.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
