AL DIVISION SERIES: YANKEES VS RAYS

October 6, 2026

Aaron Boone

Yankee Stadium

New York Yankees

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. Obviously a lot of talk about the defense last night, but you guys have only scored two runs so far against Tampa bay. What are you seeing with the lineup right now and the bats?

AARON BOONE: Yeah. Obviously Rasmussen really shut us down the first night. Like hit a couple of balls on the screws, but for the most part he had his way with us and kind of dominated the game.

Last night I thought offensively better at-bats, like we had some opportunities, especially in the middle of the game. I thought Bellie had a great at-bat with the bases loaded there. We were able to knock Peralta out. Didn't find the hole and then just not enough. But the story is we gotta play cleaner baseball than that.

In the first inning, the remarkable thing is to only get out of that with one run and then tie the game and have a position there to take the lead with a good at-bat from Bellie. But ultimately we gotta play cleaner and just obviously a rough start to the game for us.

Q. Aaron, going back to last night's game, when Booser and Seymour came in, you opted to leave your lefties in there. What was your rationale in not using a pinch hitter other than Goldschmidt?

AARON BOONE: Yeah. With Seymour, Seymour I've used very neutral. So there would've been a right-hander I would have used at some point had we gotten runners on base, but by the time he was in the game it was 5-1. So I was playing a more of a get on base, see if we could create traffic and then possibly shoot G or Goldie or Ramos in a spot there.

Booser is just being very early there and knowing they want to force our lefties out there. Felt like we put good at-bats against them, especially I'm not going to hit for Bellie in that spot or Rice, obviously.

Yeah, so Booser was a timing thin. Seymour I don't necessarily view as a total lefty. He's just one of their very neutral guys.

Q. Aaron, obviously you had a decision to make between Max Fried and Carlos Rodon for Game 3 what went into the decision to go with Fried in Game 3?

AARON BOONE: Yeah. Really close decision, as it has been with a number of these, going back to the Wild Card series. Kind of lining up with when they've thrown in their bullpens and Carlos had a live last week. So just kind of lining it up with that and wanting to get max back out there tomorrow.

Q. And what do you kind of expect from Max tomorrow?

AARON BOONE: I expect him to give us a great chance to win. Look, the first two games, and especially Game 2, was not pretty. It was not good enough, obviously. But we got a chance to go win a baseball game tomorrow night, and I feel like Max gives us a great opportunity to do that.

Q. Aaron, do you expect to make any lineup changes for tomorrow night, just to try to shake up your offense a little bit?

AARON BOONE: Yeah. I'm considering a couple things. But I haven't settled on anything. I'll kind of work through that through the day and talk to some of my coaches and make a decision hopefully tonight on which way I want to go.

Q. Are those kind of the same spots that you were considering for Game 2?

AARON BOONE: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a little bit, sure.

Q. After a game last night, either last night or today, do you have to speak to the group to settle them or are they the type of players that they do it themselves without you having to say anything?

AARON BOONE: Yeah. I try and hit my individual touch points with that and talk to some different guys personally and just making sure we have the right mindset. I didn't get the group together as a whole, but I feel like this group has done a really good job all year of bouncing back through a tough game, through some tough moments in the season and handled it all very well.

So that's my expectation this time. It has to be. You know, obviously we're completely up against it now.

So we gotta bring it on tomorrow night. But we also gotta -- it's that level of focus with some calm to the whole situation, too, because you don't want to get in a situation where you're pressing out there, trying to do more than you're capable of. It's about doing your job right now.

Q. Aaron, you had said yesterday that you hoped most of your guys would kind of stay away from the stadium today after a late arrival. Is that still the case after a game like last night?

AARON BOONE: Yeah. I don't know, because I think a lot of our pitchers will come in and throw and move around, and we have the training room open.

Whatever guys feel like they need to do today, I think -- I know I got home a little after 5 this morning. So hopefully guys were able to sleep at least a little bit and kind of recover today. And I'm sure there will be some guys in at least moving around and doing some things behind the scenes to be ready to go tomorrow.

Q. Aaron, you mentioned a couple times last night and today that the team's been resilient and able to bounce back. Besides them being good players, what do you think is the reason they've been able to do that and what makes you confident this time around?

AARON BOONE: Yeah. I mean, I hope it's part of the experience of playing here. You've gotta be able to do that to survive a long season. But then as it shrinks in the post-season, you gotta be able to handle not only good moments but really tough moments, and last night was a very difficult one for us. But you gotta be able to respond to that.

We talk about it going back to spring training, going into the post-season, like it's about continuing to press on and to the next play being so important. And you've gotta be able to handle that.

So in the grand scheme of things in a large season where you've faced different adversities, you've gotta be able to handle that. You've gotta be able to handle that within the grind, and when you get into the post-season where everything is heightened much, you gotta be able to handle the successes and failures that come your way.

And we've done that so far this season, but we've certainly gotta answer right now here as we've had our first really difficult post-season moment as well.

Q. One of the first things that Cam told us last night was that he felt that the team didn't really show up. Are you at all concerned with where you guys are at mentally going into tomorrow's game?

AARON BOONE: Look, we gotta mentally bounce back from obviously having a really tough first inning. You know, I felt like our preparation was really good. I actually even after infield and BP said to someone about how sharp I felt like we looked.

So obviously we came out and did not play well, especially in the first inning, and that kind of snowballed.

But you gotta be able to handle moments like that, especially in the post-season, if you're going to ultimately be successful.

So we'll be ready to go tomorrow. We gotta put yesterday behind us and go out and play our best game.