Aaron Boone Hits Back at Blue Jays Commentator’s Dig at Yankees Earlier in Season Ahead of 2025 ALDS Matchup

Aaron Boone fired back at the comments of a Toronto Blue Jays commentator who claimed that the New York Yankees were not a good team.

Aaron Boone Hits Back at Blue Jays Commentator’s Dig at Yankees Earlier in Season Ahead of 2025 ALDS Matchup

Aaron Boone (Image via Imago)

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The New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays will begin the best-of-five American League Division Series (ALDS) on Saturday. Ahead of this matchup, manager Aaron Boone hit back at a Blue Jays commentator for his dig over the Yankees earlier in the season.

After a bright start to the season, the Yankees did stumble a bit in the middle. This included them getting swept by the Blue Jays in a 4-game series in Toronto.

The team also made some defensive errors against them. Their slump in form saw the Blue Jays take over the American League East standings.

When the two teams were battling it out for the division title in September, Blue Jays’ broadcaster Buck Martinez claimed that the Yankees are not a good team.

You know, the Yankees, they’re not a good team. I don’t care what their record is. They have a lot of wild pitches, they make a lot of mistakes in the field, they don’t run the bases very well. If they don’t hit home runs, they don’t have a chance to win.

Buck Martinez said during a live broadcast

Ahead of Game 1 on Saturday, Boone would hit back at this. The Yankees manager claimed that Martinez was “wrong” in his assessment of his team after referencing his comments during the press conference.

The last couple of months really started to play really well. Contrary to some thoughts up here, we’re a really good team. I know Buck [Martinez] had some thoughts, that’s all I was responding to. He’s wrong. But it doesn’t matter.

Aaron Boone told the reporters

There was also some back-and-forth between Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay and another Blue Jays commentator, Jamie Campbell. Kay initially expressed that the Blue Jays were not a “first-place” team. After that 4-game series sweep in July, Campbell took a dig at him by holding a broomstick while discussing the sweep.

The Blue Jays had the number of the Yankees in the regular season. They won the season series 8-5 while winning 6 out of the 7 games in Toronto. As they held the tiebreaker over the Yankees, they ended up winning the AL East division despite both teams finishing with an identical 94-68 record.

Aaron Boone names Luis Gil as starter for Game 1 against Blue Jays

On Saturday, the New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays will meet in the playoffs for the first time in history. For this big game, manager Aaron Boone has put his trust in Luis Gil and named him the starter for Game 1 of the American League Division Series (ALDS).

Aaron Boone and Luis Gil
Aaron Boone and Luis Gil (Image via Imago/MLB)

Gil, the 2024 American League Rookie of the Year, had a delayed start this year. He would suffer a right lat strain in the offseason and missed the opening few months of the 2025 campaign.

The 27-year-old made his 2025 debut in August and went on to make 11 starts. In this, he went 4-1 while pitching with an ERA of 3.32 and picked up 41 strikeouts.

Boone, who has been criticized for several of his decisions, has decided to give the ball to Gil in this game. The 52-year-old believes Gil is “ready” for this.

With Max Fried and Carlos Rodon starting Game 1 and 2 of the American League Wild Card Series against the Boston Red Sox, the Yankees had to choose between Gil and Will Warren as their starter for Game 1. The team eventually went with Gil for this huge game. Boone later revealed that Fried will start Game 2 on Sunday.

The Dominican international does have experience of pitching in the playoffs. Last year, he made two starts in the postseason, one against the Cleveland Guardians in the American League Championship Series (ALCS) and one against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.

However, he did not have a good time in this, as he gave up 4 runs in two innings against the Guardians and 4 runs in four innings against the Dodgers, taking his postseason ERA to 6.75 in 2 starts. The Yankees will be hoping for this number to come down a bit.

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