NEW YORK — Aaron Boone, the manager of the New York Yankees, said on Friday that he is telling his team to be consistent at the plate, even though they are 0-2 in the ALCS against their hated rivals, the Houston Astros.
The Bronx Bombers will be glad to be back at home for Game 3 of their best-of-seven playoff series on Saturday when a well-rested Gerrit Cole will be on the mound. The Yankees’ offense will try to get back on track and keep their World Series hopes on track.
“Hopefully he can eliminate, hold them down and get us off to a good start, and then we can do enough offensively,” Boone told reporters, “We know we’re up against it, certainly, but we look forward to going out and trying to win a baseball game. That’s kind of as far as we look into it.”
After the Astros struck out 30 batters in the first two games, which Boone called “alarming” and “unacceptable,” the Yankees have their work cut out for them to turn things around. But he insisted that the bad start had not caused a “major change in strategy.”
Instead, he is focusing his efforts on calming the tension in the locker room. Boone told:
“Sometimes when that narrative grabs hold and then you have had a couple of rough games… you start thinking, ‘I’m going to go up there and touch the ball. And sometimes when you get so focused on, ‘I’m going to go touch the ball’, you start expanding the strike zone. And when you do that against a Houston Astro pitching staff you’re in trouble and you’re playing into their hands.”
The Yankees have never come back from being down 0-2 in the ALCS. They also have a grudge against the Astros because they beat them on the way to winning the Fall Classic in 2017, a victory that was later tainted by a sign-stealing scandal.
It is scheduled that Game 3 of the ALCS will take place on Saturday at 5 p.m. ET (2100 GMT).
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