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NEW YORK – In a night of October, 15 years ago, Aaron Boone sent a ball into the Bronx sky that defeated the Boston Red Sox, who hated the Boston Red Sox, sent the New York Yankees to the World Series and allowed Boone, at the time third player of the Yankees, would never again be forced to buy a drink in this city – a case that, without the knowledge of all parties involved, was made with a tacit warning and a provisional expiry date.
The warning: do not do anything daring that could torpedo a future Yankees season.
The expiry date: it's a bit difficult to understand all these years later, but there is a good chance that 8 October 2018 will be mentioned.
Another October night in the Bronx, during another game in the playoffs against the hated Red Sox, at another time that required decisive action, Boone, now the Yankees' rookie coach , made the opposite to the direction of hitting a homer without an appointment: This error caused a 16-1 defeat in the third game of the American League division series at Yankee Stadium, a historic and disconcerting that put the season of 100 victories at its height.
It can be said that his free drink card was revoked until further notice.
We will never know what would have happened if Boone had eliminated starting pitcher Luis Severino before the start of the fourth inning, when it was painfully obvious that the right-hander did not have the necessary weapons that night to counter the attack. relentless Boston. And we'll never know what kind of fight the Yankees could have rallied in the remaining innings if Boone had been retained – after Severino, already shot down by three points, loaded goals with no withdrawal and a pass – inserted one of the many Band artists in his pen, rather than right-handed Lance Lynn, leaving for all his 170 appearances in the league, except six, in the last six seasons.
All we know is what happened: at a time when the Yankees were in desperate need of someone to come knocking on the side or at least minimize a bad situation, Lynn, maybe The least well armed arm of the Yankees' furnace to do such a thing, gave up a base-laden march to Mookie Betts, followed by a base-loaded double to Andrew Benintendi.
When the time reliever, Chad Green, ends up cleaning up the mess – and not before yielding a single to the RBI to Steve Pearce and a triple to Brock Holt – the Red Sox sent 11 men to the plate, scored seven points and have imposed themselves. in position to clinch a spot in the AL Championship series against the Houston Astros with a win Tuesday night in the fourth game.
The Yankees seemed to have little fighting after the endless fourth inning, although much of it can be attributed to Nathan Eovaldi, the Red Sox coach, who divided his vaunted squad into seven dominant rounds with a ball fast that ended at 101 mph and an assortment of secondary lands. The Yankees, who set a record in the major league with 267 homers this season, were held without one for the first time in four games this season, falling to 10-22 in 2018, combined regular and post season, when They failed at home.
At the end of a dreary night for the Yankees, they were reduced to sending reserve goalkeeper Austin Romine to the mound to throw the ninth in a virtually empty stadium – and watch him give way to the two-point homer Holt. a cycle and ensured that this would be the most unbalanced defeat in the Yankees' playoff history.
Of all the results expected from match 3 on Monday night, it was perhaps the least likely. The Yankees have been a perfect 7-0 at Yankee Stadium in the playoffs since the 2017 wild card game, winning these games by a total margin of 42-14. And on the mound, at Severino, they had their ace – a pitcher who, five days earlier in this year's wild card game, had ruled the Oakland A over four innings to the limit.
The aggressive way in which Boone managed this victory was almost perfect and instructive: driven by the challenge of making or dying, he dragged Severino to the first sign of trouble in the fifth and used only his most relievers. reliable and dominant. guiding the house a 7-2 win.
It was true that the stakes were not as high on Monday night, but they were close and at the very least required a higher degree of urgency than Boone's – especially when signs everywhere indicated that Severino lacked his best assets.
Severino's first pitch was scored in the middle of the pitch by Betts, probably the most useful player in the AL, for a 400-foot exit. His first trip to the Boston order resulted in a series of online releases, plus two singles, a walk and a Red Sox race. In the third inning, which started with a Yankees run-off, the first four batters were scored at the single, single sacrifice, at a point where the Yankees still had no one warming up. the enclosure.
Finally, as Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers led in the second inning to put the score at 3-0, Boone warmed up a pair. But they sat down when Severino escaped from the third and was still sitting when he ran to the mound to open the fourth against the bottom of the Boston order.
Only when these three forwards – Holt, Christian Vazquez and Jackie Bradley Jr. – stood out, did Boone finally get out of the Yankees' canoe, shooting at Severino with a slow walk of the gallows. Rumors, sarcastic applause and a handful of boos from the crowd of 49,657 people welcomed the entire transaction.
Because "the game Aaron Boone" is already taken – the scourge rewarded by a Boone pennant in 2003 will remain a defining moment in the history of the Yankees, regardless of the trajectory of his career as a manager – this game, for reasons of historical convenience, will probably be known, incongruously, as "the game Angel Hernandez".
That's because Hernandez, the base's first referee on Monday night, is the only person in the stadium to have had a worse night than Boone; his calls to first base were challenged four times through a replay and then overturned three times.
As was the case with Boone, Tuesday brings a chance of redemption but also a slight margin of error for Hernandez. The bad news: he has the plate assignment at home in the fourth game. The good news: Typing calls are not subject to replay.
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