AARON LOON
Boone goes nuts, gets ejected as Yankees rally past Tigers
A fired-up Aaron Boone was ejected in the fifth inning while vociferously arguing a strike call with umpire Nic Lentz (inset) in the Yankees’ 7-5 win over the Tigers on Friday night. Boone later squatted like a catcher to really get his money’s worth.
The kick to the stomach on Thursday night was more than still lingering on Friday evening. Something about watching Dellin Betances give up three runs and two homers in the ninth inning can work deep into the core of a club’s body.
So, Aaron Boone decided he needed to remind his floundering club that momentto-moment focus was a must.
“He said, ‘ We are hurting and lot of guys have stepped in. We need you guys to pick it up,’ ’’ Luke Voit said of Boone’s pregame message Friday. “We are a good team, take it pitch by pitch and do the small things right.’’
That resonated with the Yankees, who played a cleaner game than they had on Thursday. So, too, did Boone getting ejected in the fifth inning for disagreeing with plate umpire Nic Lentz’s strike zone with Gleyber Torres at the plate. The bill of Boone’s cap made contact with Lentz and Boone got into a catcher’s crouch to demonstrate to the ump with his hand what was a strike and what wasn’t.
“That’s what a manager is supposed to do, he let them know he wasn’t happy with those pitches,’’ Luis Severino said of Boone getting tossed with one out in the fifth and Tigers starter Jordan Zimmerman not having allowed a hit.
An inning later Brett Gardner, Aaron Hicks and Miguel Andujar homered, and in the eighth the Yankees rallied for three runs to cop a 7-5 win in front of 41,026 at Yankee Stadium.
Torres delivered the big hit, a two-run single in the eighth, but the turning point came when first-base umpire and crew chief Paul Nauert ruled Voit had checked his swing on a 3-2 pitch. That walk loaded the bases with two outs for Torres.
Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire roared out of the dugout, with his arms skyward, toward Nauert. He was ejected. On his way off the field, he asked Voit if he swung and laughed.
“[Nauert] said I didn’t swing, so I didn’t swing,’’ said Voit, who sure looked like he didn’t check the hack in time on replays. Austin Romine added an RBI single for a two-run
lead that was turned over to David Robertson. Boone said the Yankees wanted to avoid using Betances after he threw 31 pitches in Thursday evening’s flush job.
Robertson raised the stress level by giving up a leadoff single to Dawel Lugo and walking Mikie Mahtook with one out in the ninth, which got Betances throwing in the pen. But Robertson rebounded to strike out Nicholas Castellano and Victor Reyes for his fifth save.
Severino provided six innings in which he allowed three runs and six hits. He struck out 10 and was in position to grab a victory, but Zach Britton allowed a seventh-inning runner he inherited from Jonathan Holder to score and tie the score. Britton also loaded the bases without an out in the eighth when the Tigers scored a run.
“Everything was working for me tonight,’’ Severino said. “I got my change-up back.’’
The explosive sixth inning started innocently when Romine’s one-hop smash to Lugo was ruled an error on the second baseman. After Romine was forced at second the ice-cold Gardner (22-for-113; .195 in August at that point) launched a two-run homer into the second deck in right off Zimmerman. With two outs Hicks and Andujar went backto-back to right and left field, respectively.
By then Boone was in the video room behind the Yankees’ dugout watching on monitors but his tirade wasn’t forgotten.
“When the manager feels the same way you do it basically tells you what you thought,’’ Hicks said of what appeared to be a floating strike zone. “And that ended up with a big inning.’’
An inning that didn’t erase the Thursday night kick to the stomach, but did provide a small measure of relief for a team that needed it to avoid losing four of five.