Aaron Boone addresses Alex Rodriguez’s criticism of Yankees

New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone responded Sunday, one day after Alex Rodriguez suggested his team lacks discipline and accountability.

On FOX’s MLB pregame show Saturday, Rodriguez questioned the “accountability” of the Yankees after Boone did not pull Jazz Chisholm from Saturday’s loss to Miami after the infielder made a brutal baserunning blunder. Rodriguez suggested that the Yankees do not face consequences for such mistakes, and that it has contributed to further errors.

“If any one of us made a mistake, we would be sitting our butt right on the bench,” Rodriguez said. “I see mistake after mistake, and there’s no consequences.”

Boone took issue with those remarks when asked about them on Sunday. He said he accepts that the Yankees will always face added scrutiny, but that he disagreed with the substance of Rodriguez’s remarks.

“I would disagree a little bit with the accountability factor, but the reality is, we’re focused every day on being the best we can be,” Boone said, via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. “That’s how we have to do it. But I understand when it doesn’t happen, or we don’t have the record that I think we should have, or certainly people think we should have — that comes with the territory.”

Boone is known for keeping things positive publicly, even when things are going poorly for the Yankees. That has led to some criticism from fans, who feel that he goes too easy on his players when they are underperforming. The team’s recent stretch of mediocre play combined with a lack of consequences for errors like Chisholm’s have reinforced those critiques.

The Yankees lost again on Sunday and were swept by the Marlins, dropping them to 60-51 on the season. Until the team starts consistently winning again, Boone is going to hear more comments like Rodriguez’s.