Boone's inexperience factors heavily into Yankees' ALDS exit

Warning: Story contains coarse language

Aaron Boone eschewed sports talk radio on his "shitty drive home" from work on Monday night - after his managerial malpractice helped put the New York Yankees in a 2-1 hole in their best-of-five ALDS matchup with the Boston Red Sox - preferring the commercial-free offerings of Sirius XM's "80s on 8" to aggrieved fans expounding on the myriad reasons why he's an idiot.

He didn't need to hear Jimmy from the Bronx deconstruct his dubious bullpen management to know he shouldn't have left Luis Severino in as long as he did, or to appreciate the sense of urgency incumbent on him following Monday's 16-1 shellacking, the worst postseason loss in franchise history. (The deluge of text messages from friends encouraging him to "Hang in there" ably conveyed the message.) And his postgame justifications be damned, Boone - an ESPN analyst at this point last year - was going to learn from the experience.

"I think I do a pretty good job of turning the page, but you always kind of work through things or play out things differently," Boone told reporters ahead of Game 4 at Yankee Stadium. "Because a lot of times decisions you make are not just black and white, this is what we're doing in this spot, they're decisions that you understand a couple of different ways you could go that makes some sense.

"So you kind of evaluate those and think about those and hopefully analyze always and kind of sharpening the process as far as those decisions are made. And then you move on and hopefully always continue to grow from things that have happened."

On Tuesday night, however, with the Yankees playing for their lives, signs of growth were non-existent. Instead, a striking deja vu unfolded in the Bronx, where Boone's lack of proactiveness factored prominently into a season-ending 4-3 loss to the Red Sox that got out of hand quickly (and got real interesting late.)

For their most important game of the year, Boone handed the start to CC Sabathia, the veteran left-hander who enjoyed another fine season in 2018 and had acquitted himself well enough in three starts against the Red Sox. That, in itself, wasn't objectionable - although, with Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez both slated to bat in the first inning, an "opener" might've been optimal - but Boone, for the second consecutive night, afforded his starter far too much rope, entrusting Sabathia to weasel his way out of a jam that almost any of New York's relievers would've been better suited to do. And, not surprisingly, Sabathia couldn't - and it cost them.

From the get-go, it seemed unlikely Sabathia would pitch deep into the night. In the top of the first, after retiring the first two hitters with relative ease, the 38-year-old flirted with disaster, allowing successive singles to Steve Pearce and Martinez, then walking Xander Bogaerts to load the bases. Moments later, Ian Kinsler clobbered a first-pitch cutter into deep left field. His drive plopped into Brett Gardner's glove a few feet in front of the outfield wall. Crisis averted, but the near-miss would've compelled any other manager - especially one with a bullpen as deep as Boone's - to shorten his leash. And, without question, Sabathia should've been on a batter-to-batter basis when the lineup turned over. Boone felt differently, though.

As it happens, the following inning went a bit smoother for Sabathia, who navigated his way through the bottom of Boston's lineup without much trouble. But with the meat of the Red Sox lineup due up in the third, it was, unequivocally, time for Boone to get someone throwing in the bullpen.

But he didn't.

Boone didn't make a call to the 'pen, either, after Sabathia clipped Andrew Benintendi with his first pitch in the top of the third, and he didn't get anyone up and throwing after Pearce stroked a single to center moments later, putting runners on the corners with nobody out. Only after Martinez lifted a sacrifice fly to center did Boone decide to have David Robertson get loose. And it wasn't until the top of the fourth, after the Red Sox had stormed out to a 3-0 lead, that Boone actually decided to take Sabathia out, replacing him with Zach Britton.

At that point, trailing by three, the Yankees' win expectancy sat at 15.2 percent, per FanGraphs. A couple hours later, their offseason was underway. And while there's no shame in dropping a best-of-five series to a team that won 108 games during the regular season, losing on account of managerial ineptitude is particularly an agonizing way to go, especially because the Yankees had the pieces to win the World Series.

This is what the Yankees signed up for, though, when they opted this past winter to replace Joe Girardi with Boone, whose home run in the 2003 American League Championship Series somehow qualified him to manage in the big leagues. Boone himself conceded, shortly after he was hired, that it was fair to question his inexperience, and though he made it through the regular season mostly unscathed, weaknesses get exposed in October.

Boone's performance in his first postseason series looks particularly bad, moreover, when contrasted to that of Alex Cora, another first-year manager (in the big leagues, at least) whose astute, aggressive maneuvering helped nudge the Red Sox to the ALCS for the first time since 2013. In the words of Red Sox owner John Henry, Cora - who wisely opted not to start Brock Holt the day after he hit for the cycle and used Chris Sale as his setup man in Game 4 - was "impossible to second guess." Conversely, almost every Boone decision invited scrutiny.

So even though Boone led the Yankees to their best record since 2009, his hapless performance against the Red Sox will - and should - dictate how his first season at the helm is remembered. Because, to be frank, managing in the regular season just isn't that hard from a tactical perspective, especially in the American League. Managers prove their mettle in the postseason.

Or they don't.

Jonah Birenbaum is theScore's senior MLB writer. He steams a good ham. You can find him on Twitter @birenball.