Yankees Manager Takes Subtle Shot at Blue Jays Announcer Buck Martinez
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After 162 games, the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees finished tied at the top of the American League East Division with 94 wins. The Blue Jays won the season series, 8-5, which was the tiebreaker that gave them the Wild Card round series bye.
The Yankees needed three games to eliminate the Boston Red Sox, winning the final two games after losing Game 1. After winning Game 3, New York took the short flight to Toronto for Game 1 of the American League Division Series on Saturday afternoon. When the Yankees arrived, manager Aaron Boone came with some bulletin board material.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone fires back at Buck Martinez
After the season series concluded between the two AL East rivals in early September, Toronto returned home to host the Houston Astros after losing two out of three games on the road to the Yankees. Despite winning the series, Blue Jays analyst Buck Martinez was not impressed with New York.
"You know, the Yankees, they're not a good team," said Martinez during the Astros broadcast. "I don't care what their record is. They have a lot of wild pitches, they make a lot of mistakes in the field, they don't run the bases very well. If they don't hit home runs they don't have a chance to win."
Some people may disagree with Martinez's comments, but he isn't totally wrong. The Yankees have always been a heavy home run-hitting team. But against the Red Sox, they scored nine runs in three games with only two home runs. Anthony Volpe hit a solo shot in Game 1 and Ben Rice launched a two-run blast in Game 2. They have been a team that tends to be wild on the mound and make mistakes in the field.
Boone responded to the comments from Martinez on Friday when he spoke to the media ahead of Game 1 on Saturday.
"Contrary to some thoughts up here, we're a really good team," Boone said.
"I know Buck had some thoughts," he continued. "That's all I was responding to. He's wrong. But it doesn't matter. We've got to go play, and we've got to go perform, as everyone does this time of year. We feel really good about our team. We're playing well. All that's in the past now. We've got to play well moving forward."
One must have known that Boone had this in his back pocket going to Toronto, and didn't wait long to pull it out. At the time of the comment by Martinez, the Blue Jays held a three-game lead on the Yankees, but they had to withstand a late-season charge to win the division with the tiebreaker. If they had blown the division lead and ended up in the Wild Card Series, then the comment from Martinez would not have aged well.
Instead, Toronto won the division with the tiebreaker and will host the first two games of the best-of-five series beginning on Saturday.
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Scott Roche has covered both college and professional sports for nearly three decades for various outlets. Scott has covered the MLB, NHL, and college sports and he is someone always looking for a good rumor, no matter which sport it is.