Yankees’ Aaron Boone takes blame in gut-wrenching loss to Dodgers

NEW YORK — Aaron Boone had been here before in a similar situation with his club facing the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In Game 1 of the 2024 World Series, Boone pulled Gerrit Cole after six innings, one run and 88 pitches. The New York Yankees’ manager knew his ace was gassed. Boone did not feel similarly on Friday night after Cole completed six innings, allowing zero runs on 90 pitches against the Dodgers. So, instead, he allowed Cole to start the seventh inning.

The decision backfired.

“That’s on me,” Boone said after the Yankees lost 2-1 to the Dodgers.

Cole allowed a leadoff walk to Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts, who was Los Angeles’ first baserunner since the third inning. Boone walked out of the dugout and headed to the mound, but he did not signal for left-handed reliever Brent Headrick, who was ready. Boone ultimately retreated, allowing Cole to face left-handed slugger Max Muncy.

The right-hander jumped ahead 0-2 in the count, but Muncy fouled off a few pitches and worked the count back to 2-2. Cole then hung a slider in the heart of the plate, which Muncy smashed into the second deck over the right-field wall.

MAX MUNCY, ICE COLE. pic.twitter.com/hsprLSiFuj

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) July 18, 2026

“I felt like (Cole) was competitive in the Mookie at-bat, and I felt like he had enough to get Max,” Boone said. “He jumps out in front of him but then got a mistake. I got Headrick teed up there. That’s on me.”

The Yankees missed an opportunity to gain more ground in the American League East standings had they beaten the Dodgers, because the Tampa Bay Rays dropped both games in their doubleheader against the Boston Red Sox.

Even with hindsight, though, it’s not the clearest decision for Boone to pull Cole after walking Betts. Muncy has performed better against left-handed pitching this season, and Cole was masterful. In fact, he could have struck Muncy out looking had Yankees catcher Austin Wells challenged a ball that clipped the top corner of the strike zone in an 0-2 count.

Wells told The Athletic that he would have been more aggressive with challenging in the moment had the Yankees had two Automatic Ball-Strike challenges remaining instead of one. Wells believed he needed to be certain that the call would have been overturned, but with where he was set up behind the plate and how he received the pitch, he was not convinced it was a strike. Wells said that he also factored in that it was still a 1-0 game with a few innings remaining. So he decided not to challenge. With hindsight, Wells, of course, regrets not challenging.

But there was no hindsight with the Yankees’ decision-making in the eighth inning.

With one out and Trent Grisham on first base, Ben Rice hammered a double off the right-center field wall. Grisham is not the fleetest of foot, ranking in the 32nd percentile in sprint speed, according to Statcast. But he still tried scoring from first base.

Grisham reached his fifth-fastest sprint speed as he chugged home, but was thrown out on a spectacular relay throw from Betts to Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing, who made an equally impressive tag on Grisham’s foot.

This is the play that should be debated, considering the runner, the situation and who was due up for the Yankees.

But Boone had no problem with third-base coach Luis Rojas waving Grisham home.

ANDY. MOOKIE. DALTON. pic.twitter.com/4RVbtNFzn9

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) July 18, 2026

“I thought Luis did a good job in reading the throw, that it was going over the second baseman’s head,” Boone said. “Mookie was on the run to make the play. Made a pretty good throw on the run. Don’t have an issue with taking the shot there.”

Grisham may have been able to score had he been running full speed as soon as the ball was hit. He was not sprinting until he reached second base, when he could tell that Dodgers center fielder Andy Pages was not making a play.

“I’m reading between first and second,” Grisham explained. “I thought (Rice) got it good. As soon as I kind of saw the direction where the outfielders were, I figured they weren’t catching it.”

Right before Grisham rounded third base, Rojas briefly flashed the stop sign before continuing to wave him home. Boone said that was because Rojas was watching the ball and saw Betts would have had to make a throw on the run, which he did.

The right decision, statistically, would have been to hold Grisham at third. The Yankees would have had runners on second and third with one out, and Paul Goldschmidt up versus left-handed reliever Alex Vesia. Statcast’s win probability metric estimates the Yankees would have had a 55.3 percent chance of winning the game with one out and runners on second and third. It dropped to 26.7 percent with a lone runner on second base and two outs. So why weren’t the Yankees more conservative?

“There’s never any guarantees of (coming through),” Boone said. “I think he was holding him up and then read the throw pretty well. You’re making a split-second decision. A lot of times you’ve got to push the envelope a little bit with one out. No outs is very different. You’re going to be a little conservative with where we are in the order. They might go to the righty there, or they walk Goldy anyway. I thought it was a decisive decision, where he was probably holding him, but read the throw properly. You got Mookie on the run, throwing. You’d hate to leave that run on the table with the guy running off balance.”

Even though Betts made a throw on the run, Grisham scoring from first base is highly unlikely, judging by history. Entering Friday’s game, Grisham had successfully taken an extra base 23 percent of the time, which ranks 145th out of 151 qualified players, according to Stathead’s Katie Sharp. Sharp also noted that, in his Yankees career since 2024, Grisham has only scored twice on 21 plays in which he was the runner on first and a double was hit.

The Grisham decision and the Cole indecision likely cost the Yankees a chance for a win on Friday.