AL DIVISION SERIES: YANKEES VS RAYS

October 5, 2026

Aaron Boone

Tropicana Field

New York Yankees

Postgame 2 Press Conference

Rays 5 – Yankees 2

THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with Aaron.

Q. Aaron, you'd said multiple times coming into the series that your team would need to play a clean baseball game to beat the Rays team. Four errors tonight. What do you think caused the defense to completely unravel?

AARON BOONE: Obviously, a really rough night to say the least for us. We've got to get over it. We've responded all year to difficult times, and we've got to do that again. We've got to get ourselves up off the mat.

Obviously, tonight was just not good enough for us and certainly not good enough to beat that club. We've got to get over it, and playing for our lives Tuesday night.

Q. Aaron, you look at that 5th inning, I believe Hicks was at the plate, two runners on. You had everybody in. Jazz was a couple feet off in the dirt. Should he have been in the grass there?

AARON BOONE: No, we were playing a step back just with less speed at 3rd in that situation.

Q. The results obviously don't look great, but how close was Schlittler to what you expect? Maybe a couple location errors.

AARON BOONE: Yeah, he battled. Obviously, picked us up kind of all night. It's just hard to do that time after time. Too many, obviously, free outs out there, or free base runners. So I thought Cam threw the ball well. They did a good job against him of putting pressure on him and putting the ball in play and felt like -- started to get some really good swings off him there that last time through.

But Cam did his job. We didn't give him a good enough chance to really do his job.

Q. Will you say anything different to them after a game like this than you might in a normal circumstance?

AARON BOONE: Yeah, I greet the guys every night on the plane. Obviously, it's going to be a rough ride back, but you've got to find out what you're made of. It's gut check time. You've got to, again, pick yourself up. As bad as it was, it's a loss. We had a chance to come out and win a baseball game. I said Tuesday night. Wednesday night. We've got to play clean against this club, against any club in the playoffs, but we have to be better than that, obviously.

Q. Aaron, in that first inning with Caminero up, the ground ball to Lombard, makes the backhanded flip to Jazz. Did you want to see Jazz not make that throw to first?

AARON BOONE: Probably. Probably a little force there. You obviously don't have great speed there going down the line. Probably best if you're under control and you make the throw, though, it's probably going to be bang-bang. So I don't necessarily have a problem with the throw. We've got to play catch. It's the big leagues.

Q. The Aranda single that started the 5th to Jones, did you think he could have or should have had that one?

AARON BOONE: No, no. The line drive to right?

Q. I asked because (indiscernible) said it was a below-average --

AARON BOONE: It was a bullet single to right. There are plenty of others to pick on tonight. That wasn't one of them.

Q. Recover to zero down in the series, whether (indiscernible)?

AARON BOONE: Yeah, an opportunity to do something great. But it starts one play, one inning at a time. So we can't play like that and expect a win. So we've got to come out Wednesday night. Everything's on the line. It's obviously all hands on deck, and we've got to try and get one. And then go from there.

So we're capable of doing it. This team has been really good at picking themselves up all year. We faced some really tough moments, and I've talked about them having a lot of grit. They've had that all year and we've got to find it right now.

Q. As far as getting the offense going, one thing you guys have done well all year is drawn walks. Four in two games. Some of that's out of your control. How do you get guys back into the mode where you're getting base runners, getting some walks.

AARON BOONE: I thought we started to put together some really good at-bats, especially in the 5th inning where we chased Peralta and Belly puts a good swing on it, hits it to the fence. That's unfortunate there. I thought in the middle of the game, we had a chance to get ourselves back -- we did get ourselves back in the game.

But, I mean, couple balls to the right and it's bases clearing double. So this is not a team that gives you a lot of free passes. They're as good as anyone in the sport at limiting walks. So you've got to do it in different ways. Whatever presents itself.

Some nights, it's going to be, yeah, a walk gets things going. Some nights it's putting the ball into play. Sometimes it's putting the ball in the seats.

So whatever it takes, we've got to do it offensively and we've got to be able to score some runs and do a better job of preventing than we did tonight.

Q. Cam's four-seamer is one of the most valuable pitches in baseball. Tonight, only two whiffs on 21 swings on that pitch -- what did you see on his four-seamer tonight?

AARON BOONE: I think he's just throwing a lot more pitches than he should have been throwing. I think it's maybe a different story there if we take care of the ball and he's at 30 pitches or 25, 30 pitches instead after the first two and gets in a rhythm and he's in a groove.

Kind of found themselves in trouble a lot tonight, not by his own doing. I thought stuff-wise, he looked good to me.

Q. Aaron, just how shocking was it to see your defense unravel like that tonight?

AARON BOONE: Yeah, and some good defenders that didn't make a couple plays. So, yeah, just we got to get over it, though. As simple as that. I mean, we can't dwell on what just happened to us. We've got to come ready, again playing for our lives on Wednesday night, and I expect this team to do that.

We've stared a lot of uncertainty in the face all year and these guys have responded time and time again and we need to do that again right now.

Q. After what's transpired in these two games, why do you believe -- why should fans believe in this team to win three straight games?

AARON BOONE: Well, we've got to win -- we've got to play the first inning of Game 3. We've got to come out and play well. So we've responded all year. We need to do it again. Obviously, we need to play better and it starts with just one at a time. I don't even get ahead of myself and win three. We've got to go win one and we've got to play better Wednesday night to make that happen.

Q. Aaron, is it Fried for 3?

AARON BOONE: Fried for 3.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks so much.