In what will go down in history as a season-defining loss if the New York Yankees don’t reach the World Series, the collective ALCS Game 3 meltdown against the Cleveland Guardians cannot be taken lightly. You don’t just shake this off and win so easily the next day. It doesn’t work that way.

The Yankees squandered two of the most exciting home runs of the 2024 postseason due to bullpen overuse, poor management decisions, baserunning errors and poor defense. This was not an example of being played out. It was the epitome of actively being worse and weaker than your opponent.

Aaron Boone seems to be able to shrug this off quite easily… or at least he tried to at the beginning of his postgame presser. But then he was asked a question to which he objected.

A reporter asked if the Yankees felt like they had the series “in the bag” after Judge and Stanton went back-to-back on Emmanuel Clase to score three runs and give New York a 4-3 lead. Progressive Field had completely emptied. Fans couldn’t believe what they had just seen. Frankly, it was a fair question, even if it sounds unrealistic given the stakes in October.

Boone immediately brushed off that question with an attitude, possibly revealing that he’s a little lost afterward. For someone who preached being “balanced” all year long, he sure wasted a little emotional outburst on something very minor.

Aaron Boone gets angry at reporter after Yankees ALCS Game 3 collapse

Do we blame him? Not really. Emotions are running high. You are a professional on the field surrounded by other professionals, so you know exactly what the mindset is. No one is dancing around the dugout celebrating a two-out win in the top of the eighth inning, leading by one run.

However, there is a level of trust where you switch gears after a moment like that and go into kill mode – something the Yankees never do for fame, and didn’t do Thursday night. Boone called on three relievers to get the job done, and they all failed in different ways.

Tommy Kahnle clogged the bases in the eighth, forcing Boone to go to Luke Weaver. Although Weaver got out of trouble, he gave up a double and the game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth despite backing Lane Thomas into an 0-2 count with two outs. One stroke away from a 3-0 series lead. Then Clay Holmes took the ball in the 10th, immediately gave up a leadoff single and got the next two outs before giving up a walk-off two-run homer to David Fry.

In between, the offense scored just one run in the top of the ninth inning after runners were on second and third base with no one out. Austin Wells struck out. Gleyber Torres hit a sac-bunt. Juan Soto looked out. In the top 10th? Judge dropped out. Stanton walked. Jazz Chisholm grounded out. Anthony Rizzo was walked intentionally. Anthony Volpe struck out and swung from his boots. In total, they went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position, left eight runners on base, struckout ten times and recorded only six basehits.

And to top it all off, Boone was essentially talking out of both sides of his mouth in this press. He insisted the Yankees would be back and ready to go on Friday as he fended off a question about the roller coaster of emotions. A few minutes later, he responded abruptly with disgust to the reporter who asked the “series in the bag” question.

So yeah, we’ll see how the Yankees “react” on Friday as everyone tries to pretend this unique, crushing loss doesn’t have a great chance of completely turning the series around.