At the end of the day, the result is all that matters. Even New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone admitted that dealing with white-knuckle finishes is “a part of the gig.”
Right now, he and the Yankees will take wins any way they can get them; and they continue to pile up as the Bronx Bombers take an 11-game win streak — their longest since 1985 — into a west-coast road trip that begins with four against the Oakland Athletics.
“1985?” Boone asked after the Yankees completed a two-game series sweep of the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday night. “We’re in the throes of this thing. We’re in the grind, we’re in the fight. It’s been so much fun competing with these guys, watching these guys compete, watching these guys show up every day knowing there’s a lot on the line, knowing with the attitude of ‘who’s it going to be today?’… that’s a fun thing to be a part of.”
The Yankees managed to clinch that 11th straight win despite closer Aroldis Chapman almost blowing a 5-3 lead by walking in a run with the bases loaded to draw the Braves within one.
It continued the disturbing trend of heritability from a closer that was one of the game’s most un-hittable. Over his last 14.2 innings of work, Chapman has allowed 12 earned runs (7.36 ERA) on 13 hits while walking 17.
In the one-run game, Boone pulled Chapman for Wandy Peralta, who shut the door by getting reigning NL MVP Freddie Freeman to fly out with the bases loaded to end the game. Peralta has been stellar in August, not allowing a single run in his last 11 appearances that included three saves.
His ascension coupled with Chapman’s decline obviously creates questions of whether or not Boone will tweak the closer role for the stretch run — and he’ll let you know when he comes to a decision.
“We have to figure it out. A lot of people are doing some real good things, Chappy is one of them,” Boone said. “We just have to continue to find ways to win games. It really is just a bit of an all-hands-on-deck, let’s go find a way and a lot of guys continue to step up.”
