What agitated Yankees’ Aaron Boone after 6-homer win over Red Sox

The Yankees used the long ball once again on Sunday, July 1, 2018 (7/1/18) to beat up on the Boston Red Sox 11-1 at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees hit six home runs, including three by center fielder Aaron Hicks.

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NEW YORK — There’s one thing and maybe one thing only that seems to get Yankees manager Aaron Boone just a little perturbed during his media sessions.

He doesn’t get the logic of scribes asking him if he ever worries about his homer-happy ballclub becoming too dependent on the long ball.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Boone said Sunday night with a look of disbelief when the topic came up again after the Yankees blasted a season-high six homers in an 11-1 pounding of the Boston Red Sox. “I think at some point we had the best record in the game when we didn’t homer. If you don’t homer, usually teams don’t score a lot of runs in those games.

“Look, we have power. We’re going to hit the ball out of the ballpark. The idea is we want to create as much traffic as possible and give our guys a chance. A lot of times mistakes that we get that we hit well get put in the seats. That’s just how we’re built. And I think that’s a good thing.”

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All but two of the Yankees’ 11 runs during this night of slugging came via their second six-homer game since 2008.

No. 15 for rookie second baseman Gleyber Torres came with two on, No. 22 for right fielder Aaron Judge was solo shot and nobody was on when catcher Kyle Higashioka finally notched his first career hit in at-bat No. 23 with a second-deck homer to left.

And center fielder Aaron Hicks, the biggest hero of the night, went deep twice with nobody on and once with a runner aboard in joining Lou Gehrig and Mark Teixeira to become just the third Yankee ever to have a three-homer game against the Red Sox.

The win improved the Yankees’ record to a best-in-baseball 54-27 mark exactly halfway through their 162-game schedule and also pushed their major league-best homer total to 137.

Double that and the Yanks finish with 274, which would top the 1997 Seattle Mariners’ single-season record of 264.

Breaking down the Yankees’ homers thus far, they have 75 solo shots, 45 two-run homers, 15 three-run homers and two grand slams, and they’ve accounted for 52.2 percent of their 417 runs, which is the fifth most in baseball.

Boone is fine with those totals, and when he tackled a follow-up question on the topic Sunday night, he admitted the subject bothers him.

“Yeah, I guess because I’ve been kind of going through it in past postseasons (as a broadcaster) … ‘They’re too reliant on the homer’ or ‘This team don’t rely on the homer and they string four hits together against (Astros ace Justin) Verlander,’ which doesn’t happen.”

Boone then unsolicitedly shot down years of media talk that the San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals combined to win four World Series from 2010-15 by playing small ball.

“Those Royals and Giants teams that won, go back and look at those games,” Boone said. “They stuck it in the seats and had great pitching.”

The Yankees ran into a great pitcher on Saturday night and lost 11-0 with Boston ace Chris Sale pitching a one-hitter over seven shutout innings.

On Sunday night, Yankees ace Luis Severino turned the tables almost exactly, as he pitched a two-hit shutout through 6 2/3 innings to improve to 13-2 with a 1.98 ERA.

“When you’re up against a great team with great pitching, you’re going to get shut down and it’s not because you didn’t hit a homer,” Boone said. “It’s because great pitching shut you down and it’s really hard against those guys to string together hits, three and four hits in an inning, which I love.”

Randy Miller may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.