Following yet another shutout loss, this time to the Blue Jays on Friday, Yankees manager Aaron Boone issued a strong message to his players.
"We should be ticked off right now and we need to start playing better. Plain and simple," Boone said after the Yankees’ fifth loss in their last six games, and the team’s eighth in their last 10 outings.
“You pour a lot into trying to shake hands at the end of the day, and we’ve been able to do that on balance on a really high clip this year. We’ve hit a rough patch and we’ve got to dig ourselves out,” Boone continued. “We can sit here, and I can keep answering questions and talk about it … but we’ve got to go do it. And the good news is we’ve got all the pieces in that room to do that. I know that’s coming. I know it’s going to happen, but it really sucks going through it.”
New York’s loss in the second game of a four-game set against Toronto marked the fifth time that the club has been shutout in August, which is most in the majors during that span. The Yankees are now 5–12 to start the month and only two other teams have posted an equal or lesser record in August: the Nationals (5–12) and the Tigers (4–13).
As a result of their lackluster performance in recent weeks, the Yankees have seen their lead in the AL East cut nearly in half. After boasting an advantage of 15.5 games on July 8, New York’s hold on the division is now just eight games.
However, Boone made clear that he wasn’t focused on the number of games that the Yankees were ahead in the AL East. Instead, he said that he just wants to see the team play better on a daily basis.
“I don’t give a crap about the [divisional] lead,” Boone said. “Play better. We’ll handle it. You can talk about that–eight, nine, seven, 10–we need to play better. If we play like this, it’s not going to matter anyway. We handle our business, we’re in a great spot. We understand that. But we need to handle our business.”
The Yankees will take on the Blue Jays at 1:05 p.m. ET on Saturday.
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