Q. Is Gil your Game 1 starter?
AARON BOONE: Yes.
Q. Why did you settle on him?
AARON BOONE: Just feel like he's ready for this, he's in line for it. Decided we want to keep Warren an option in the pen, and we feel like Luis is ready to go.
Q. Aside from the addition of Gil, do you anticipate any other roster changes for the series?
AARON BOONE: Potentially. We haven't finalized that. We're still meeting on that stuff. I can't even tell you right now exactly how it will end up, what the numbers will be, pitchers, position players. So we'll work through that as the day unfolds today and this evening.
Q. Cody seemed like he was limping a little bit at the end of yesterday. Is he okay? Do you plan on him playing?
AARON BOONE: He should be okay. He bruised his heel. Yeah, we think he should be good to go.
Q. How did he do that?
AARON BOONE: Kind of reaggravated that scoring on that play, on the base hit, the first one yesterday. Just kind of jammed his heel a little bit when he was rounding third. He should be all right. He should be good to go.
Q. Did Gil's performance against the Orioles on the last day of the season influence this decision?
AARON BOONE: No. It's --
Q. Could have been him anyway?
AARON BOONE: Yeah, could have been him, could have been Will. But I feel like he's ready for this and in line and trust him to handle the situation.
Q. What have you thought about the way Gil has pitched this season? There's been some talk about him taking velocity off to maximize control.
AARON BOONE: Yeah, obviously missed quite a bit of time. He's kind of worked his way back. He's been really effective. It hasn't always been pretty necessarily, but we know what he's capable of. The bottom line is he's gotten results since he's come aback. He's not afraid out there. His delivery and strike throwing is important for him, and when he's doing that, he's very capable.
Q. Are you set for Games 2, 3, 4 also?
AARON BOONE: Pretty much. Max will go Game 2, and we'll probably line it up as you would think.
Q. You had the benefit of playing three home games. What type of reaction and reception are you guys expecting tomorrow?
AARON BOONE: I'm sure it will be raucous. I'm sure it will be a great environment. We've played in a lot of important regular season games up here and know how passionate it can get. I would expect that in overdrive tomorrow as they've kind of been waiting through the Wild Card series to start their own series.
So something our guys relish and look forward to, and I'm sure it's going to be a fun environment to be involved in.
Q. How much better do you think your infield defense is since the last time you guys were here?
AARON BOONE: Quite a bit. I mean, obviously Anthony is playing really well over the last couple months there. Obviously what Mac has brought, Jazz being full-time at second base now. We got a good club. We got a good defense, impactful defenders. Still got to go play well.
The times when we were here in the summer, a couple times wasn't at our best certainly and still working through some things. I feel like obviously the last couple months we've really started to play really well. Contrary to some thoughts up here, we're a really good team.
Q. That's been a theme around the team of feeling that way? Is that something you've kind of expressed to the team about? You said contrary to the thoughts up here.
AARON BOONE: I know Buck had some thoughts. That's all I was responding to. He's wrong. But it doesn't matter. We've got to go play, and we've got to go perform, as everyone does this time of year.
We feel really good about our team. We're playing well. All that's in the past now. We've got to play well moving forward. We have the challenge of a new series against another really good team and a really good opponent that has earned the opportunity to wait out this first series.
We're excited, looking forward to it, and it should be a great series.
Q. Obviously it's all about looking forward right now, but as your thought goes back to last night and just the performance by Cam -- and whether it's seeing it live or seeing it on TV -- what goes through your mind as you think about what he did?
AARON BOONE: What a great night. Just an unbelievable atmosphere at Yankee Stadium with so much on the line, a real game type experience against a division opponent, against your rival that you have a ton of history with this year and obviously years past.
I mean, Cam was -- that will be an outing probably talked about when a lot of us are gone. It was a special night and a special performance.
Q. We talked to Cam about the Red Sox fans going hard at his family on social media. How did you go through that with him and help him get through that?
AARON BOONE: Cam? Not at all. Cam's a tough kid, and I know is going to handle any slings and arrows. Social media can be an ugly place sometimes unfortunately. We try to prepare our guys and obviously support our guys in so many different ways, but Cam is broad shouldered, confident, clear eyed, and I don't think going to be affected by much.
Q. You guys are a team full of stars on the New York Yankees. What do you tell your team and your players about social media, about what they could encounter?
AARON BOONE: Everyone's different. Some people can engage in it and be fine with it, and that's okay. For those that are going to be affected or influenced, I encourage them to stay away, especially this time of year sometimes.
Everyone's got to make that decision for themselves. It's right there at your fingertips all the time. It can be a cesspool. At the end of the day, it's a lot of noise, and it shouldn't be something that's impacting you. You can find out how great you think you are or how terrible you think you are, and it's all there for you if you want to go searching for it.
Our job is to not let any of that become a distraction, and everyone's different in how they engage in it, how they interact in it, how they can handle it. If it's something that's going to get to you, I encourage our guys to get away from it.
Q. In a similar vein to that, Aaron, you've been doing this for a long time as a player and manager. He spoke so matter of factly about just saying, yeah, I was angry about it, and I wanted to make him pay for it. Have you seen many guys be able to do that, to be able to harness it, and to basically do what you wanted to do with it?
AARON BOONE: Every situation it different. Every guy is different. Again, with Cam, though, I know he's got a really good head on his shoulders. He's got a really, really good demeanor and disposition about him as well as being a really confident kid and confident in his ability.
There's probably part of him that likes some of it and likes to be able to go out and back it up with his play.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports