![\"Aaron](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/new-york-yankees-manager-aaron-117005599_cce84f.jpg\")
Aaron Boone speaks at the winter meetings on Dec. 8, 2025. AP<\/p>\nORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 It is a reality that the Yankees and Blue Jays finished the season with the same 94-68 record.<\/p>\n
It also is a reality that in the ALDS and for much of the regular-season series, the two teams did not look like they were in the same weight class, with the Blue Jays thumping the Yankees time and time again on the way to claiming the American League pennant.<\/p>\n
Still, Aaron Boone indicated Monday that the gap between the Yankees and Blue Jays is smaller than it may seem.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ended with identical records last year \u2014 I don\u2019t want to discount that they kicked our ass last year,\u201d Boone said at the winter meetings. \u201cDon\u2019t take it out of context. I would say the gap is [small]. We had the exact same record. But they obviously were a great team last year, an eyelash away from winning a world championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey certainly proved to be the better team this year, and hopefully we can close that gap and pass them and others this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blue Jays, courtesy of winning the season series 8-5 over the Yankees, owned the tiebreaker for the AL East, which gave them a bye and home-field advantage into the ALDS, where they crushed the Yankees by a combined score of 34-19.<\/p>\n
Aaron Boone speaks at the winter meetings on Dec. 8, 2025. AP<\/p>\n
Boone was asked how the Yankees could close that gap.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I mean, playing better against them is the real simple answer,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the end of the day, we ended up knotted with them [in the division]. But in the head to head, they kicked our butt, and especially in those summer months. In that stretch where we were scuffling a little bit, they beat us up, including a four-game sweep up there, and that obviously ended up really hurting us.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the Yankees have had a fairly quiet start to their offseason \u2014 Trent Grisham accepting the qualifying offer, picking up the club option on Tim Hill and re-signing Ryan Yarbrough \u2014 the Blue Jays already have made a splash in signing Dylan Cease and could make another with a big bat like Kyle Tucker.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are now the defending American League champs,\u201d GM Brian Cashman said. \u201cWe have to find our way to take that back from them and, at the same time, be better than everybody else in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boone had not yet opined on the latest chapter of the Sonny Gray saga, so he was asked about the pitcher\u2019s recent comments that joining the Red Sox made it \u201ceasy to hate the Yankees\u201d after he \u201cnever wanted to go\u201d to The Bronx back in 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s in Boston now \u2014 he\u2019s not supposed to like us anyway,\u201d Boone said with a grin. \u201cThat being said, I\u2019ve always really liked Sonny, gotten along well with him. If he\u2019ll spice up the rivalry a little, there\u2019s nothing wrong with that.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I was a little surprised how deep he went.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cashman claimed Sunday that Gray had told anyone who would listen that he wanted to be a Yankee, which led to them acquiring him at the 2017 trade deadline. <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo beyond the box score with the Bombers\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Yankees by Greg Joyce, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Gray then continued to struggle in 2018 \u2014 Boone\u2019s first season as manager \u2014 and did not tell Cashman until after the trade deadline how much he hated it in New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it wasn\u2019t certainly the best stop for him, but one of those probably important steps along what\u2019s been a really good career for him,\u201d Boone said.<\/p>\n
Anthony Volpe had been at Yankee Stadium \u201cpretty much every day\u201d rehabbing his surgically repaired left shoulder until last week, when he left for Tampa, according to Boone. Volpe will continue his rehab at the club\u2019s spring training facility and be there through the start of camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cRehab\u2019s going well,\u201d Boone said. \u201cHe\u2019s making the right kind of progress.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Preston Claiborne, who spent last season as an assistant pitching coach, will move to the bullpen to replace longtime coach Mike Harkey, whose contract the Yankees did not renew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 It is a reality that the Yankees and Blue Jays finished the season with the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":434811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2226,1266,2228,62,1290,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-434810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-aaron-boone","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-new-york-yankees","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115687750514236212","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}