Count Aaron Boone among those who heard Joe Kelly’s post-World Series criticisms of the Yankees.
Kelly, a Dodgers reliever who did not appear in the postseason, dissed the Yankees’ fundamentals after Los Angeles won the World Series in five games and suggested the Bronx Bombers were not among the top seven or eight teams that made the playoffs this year.
Asked Monday if Kelly’s comments bothered him at all, Boone said, “I mean, a little bit, but the bottom line is we didn’t play as well as we could’ve.”
“Obviously [we] especially had a tough inning in Game 5, so that’s the ultimate disappointment,” the Yankees manager said during a Zoom press conference. “I try never to get too caught up into what other people are saying or doing, especially when it comes from certain places. Everyone’s going to have their opinions and be entitled to things.”
Boone was referring to the fifth inning of Game 5, when the Dodgers scored five unearned runs after the Yankees committed two errors and Mookie Betts reached on an infield grounder to Anthony Rizzo after Gerrit Cole did not cover first base.
The Yankees also lost Game 1 after multiple miscues. Those included Gleyber Torres not corralling a throw from right field after an eighth-inning Shohei Ohtani double, which allowed Ohtani to advance to third base and ultimately score the tying run on a sacrifice fly.
“We were saying it every single game: ‘Just let them throw the ball to the infield,’” Kelly said on the Nov. 4 episode of the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast. “They can’t make a play.”
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman responded last week to the comments by Kelly, a former Red Sox reliever who pitched to a 4.78 ERA this season, was left off of the Dodgers’ NLDS roster due to a shoulder injury and never returned during the playoffs.
“I also know people with the Dodgers, so I’ve got some internal conversations that I’ve got, certainly, feedback on. I think it’s more representative of some specific players rather than the overall group,” Cashman said at the GM Meetings in San Antonio.
“In Joe’s case, it feels like [for] some reason it’s a little personal, the way he’s out talking like he has.”
Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas shared a similar sentiment as Kelly during his appearance on Chris Rose’s podcast.
“Their weakness was the way that they made outs on the bases,” said Rojas, who appeared in one game in the World Series and went 0-for-3.
“The way that they didn’t take care of the baseball and kind of play a little bit of lazy defense. We said, ‘OK, we know we’re good, but we’re gonna put pressure on them so they can make these little mistakes.”
On Monday, Boone backed his team’s fundamentals while saying the Yankees are “constantly leaning into” finding ways to get better.
“If you go back and look at storylines throughout the season, I felt like there were a lot of times that we were winning games because of, whether it was a big defensive play, whether it was small ball on a given day, whether it was a Game 4 where we get a double steal and a contact read at home,” Boone said.
“Those things happened throughout the year on a regular basis. We won a lot of games because of little things that we did well over the course of the year.”
