Yankees manager Aaron Boone had more to say about the umpires’ handling of a replay review on Wednesday than he did his team’s 4-3 win over the Cleveland Guardians.
Guardians first baseman Josh Naylor’s first-inning blooper to center appeared to be caught by Aaron Hicks, who then doubled Jose Ramirez off second base before a run scored. Cleveland manager Terry Francona didn’t signal he was challenging and his players left the field. However, the scoreboard replay showed Hicks didn’t make the catch and the fans made their feelings known.
The umpires talked amongst themselves, issued a review after a few minutes, and reversed the play. Boone was ejected before the review and was heated after the game.
Aaron Boone was ejected from today's game after the umpires overturned an out call on an Aaron Hicks play in CF
(via @TalkinYanks)pic.twitter.com/1JSyPaxbC9
— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) April 12, 2023
“I disagree still,” he said. “We’ve been told all winter and spring that you have to be up and ready…it gets thrown up on the scoreboard, I’m not saying they looked up at the scoreboard, but obviously you could feel the emotion in the building.
“Then it’s them getting together to get it right, then going to Cleveland and bailing them out. They got the play right. I will say that. But there is no way that the environment did not create, in my opinion, the end result.”
Because the play was reversed, the Yankees re-took the field down 1-0. Clarke Schmidt then immediately surrendered another run. New York came back but Aaron Boone is right. Francona didn’t signal for a challenge and the umpires, for reasons unknown, basically handed him a free review.
Boone added that he’d already called MLB’s main office about it, but don’t expect much there. As the YES broadcast noted, the Yankees couldn’t even play the game under protest due to the league basically disallowing the practice.
The Yankees won 4-3 and the point is moot, but let’s not underscore this. Had Cleveland held on and won 3-2, this would have been an incredibly bad look for MLB.
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