How Aaron Boone thinks Yankees can close gap on Blue Jays

ORLANDO, Fla. — It is a reality that the Yankees and Blue Jays finished the season with the same 94-68 record.

It also is a reality that in the ALDS and for much of the regular-season series, the two teams did not look like they were in the same weight class, with the Blue Jays thumping the Yankees time and time again on the way to claiming the American League pennant.

Still, Aaron Boone indicated Monday that the gap between the Yankees and Blue Jays is smaller than it may seem.

“We ended with identical records last year — I don’t want to discount that they kicked our ass last year,” Boone said at the winter meetings. “Don’t take it out of context. I would say the gap is [small]. We had the exact same record. But they obviously were a great team last year, an eyelash away from winning a world championship.

“They certainly proved to be the better team this year, and hopefully we can close that gap and pass them and others this year.”

The Blue Jays, courtesy of winning the season series 8-5 over the Yankees, owned the tiebreaker for the AL East, which gave them a bye and home-field advantage into the ALDS, where they crushed the Yankees by a combined score of 34-19.

Boone was asked how the Yankees could close that gap.

“Well, I mean, playing better against them is the real simple answer,” he said. “At the end of the day, we ended up knotted with them [in the division]. But in the head to head, they kicked our butt, and especially in those summer months. In that stretch where we were scuffling a little bit, they beat us up, including a four-game sweep up there, and that obviously ended up really hurting us.”

While the Yankees have had a fairly quiet start to their offseason — Trent Grisham accepting the qualifying offer, picking up the club option on Tim Hill and re-signing Ryan Yarbrough — the Blue Jays already have made a splash in signing Dylan Cease and could make another with a big bat like Kyle Tucker.

“They are now the defending American League champs,” GM Brian Cashman said. “We have to find our way to take that back from them and, at the same time, be better than everybody else in the league.”

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Boone had not yet opined on the latest chapter of the Sonny Gray saga, so he was asked about the pitcher’s recent comments that joining the Red Sox made it “easy to hate the Yankees” after he “never wanted to go” to The Bronx back in 2017.

“He’s in Boston now — he’s not supposed to like us anyway,” Boone said with a grin. “That being said, I’ve always really liked Sonny, gotten along well with him. If he’ll spice up the rivalry a little, there’s nothing wrong with that.

“But I was a little surprised how deep he went.”

Cashman claimed Sunday that Gray had told anyone who would listen that he wanted to be a Yankee, which led to them acquiring him at the 2017 trade deadline.

Gray then continued to struggle in 2018 — Boone’s first season as manager — and did not tell Cashman until after the trade deadline how much he hated it in New York.

“I know it wasn’t certainly the best stop for him, but one of those probably important steps along what’s been a really good career for him,” Boone said.

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Anthony Volpe had been at Yankee Stadium “pretty much every day” rehabbing his surgically repaired left shoulder until last week, when he left for Tampa, according to Boone. Volpe will continue his rehab at the club’s spring training facility and be there through the start of camp.

“Rehab’s going well,” Boone said. “He’s making the right kind of progress.” 

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Preston Claiborne, who spent last season as an assistant pitching coach, will move to the bullpen to replace longtime coach Mike Harkey, whose contract the Yankees did not renew.