AP
The ultimate test still awaits Aaron Boone beginning Friday night at Dodger Stadium.
But the Yankees manager, who entered his seventh season under plenty of scrutiny, has his team four wins away from its first World Series championship in 15 years after having his fingerprints on a strong ALDS and ALCS.
Particularly in the ALCS, when he had to ask his bullpen to account for 23 of 46 ⅔ innings across five games, Boone found the right levers to pull to navigate the late innings and beat the Guardians in five games.
“I think Booney did a great job,” Brian Cashman said on the field at Progressive Field amid the celebration of the Yankees punching their ticket to the World Series. “Especially this three-game series [Games 3-5 in three straight days] here, the way it played out — going into it, you’re like, ‘Game 1, let’s get our starter going deep.’ It didn’t happen. Then you go into Game [4 and 5] with the late innings the way it was, it was, ‘How are we going to piece this stuff together and can these guys step up and get the outs?’ They did.”