Buck Martinez Edit by Liam McGuire
By Sam Neumann on

Buck Martinez isn’t backing down from his Yankees take, even after Aaron Boone called him out.

The Blue Jays analyst addressed his controversial comments he made in September during a recent appearance on The Show: A NY Post baseball podcast with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman, explaining what he said about the Yankees heading into the dog days of the MLB regular season.

“You know what? At that time, you guys know the Yankees went through a tough stretch in the summer, there’s no question about it,” Martinez said. “Yeah, they’ve got some real prominent superstars. Arguably, [Aaron] Judge is one of the best players that ever played the game, and [Giancarlo] Stanton, and they’ve got Cody Bellinger. They’ve got a lot of talent. But it showed up last year in the World Series. They don’t run the bases well. They don’t have a good defensive team. Their shortstop (Anthony Volpe) made 19 errors — the most errors by any shortstop in the big leagues. Those types of things really rear their ugly head.

“Now, you guys saw the Boston-Yankees series. If Boston catches the ball, the Blue Jays are playing the Red Sox. And [they] just didn’t catch the ball. And it’s so important at this time in the season and postseason to catch the ball and make good pitches. You saw it in the first two games with the Blue Jays; the defense for Toronto has been exceptional all season long. That’s all I said.”

Toronto’s defense lived up to Martinez’s praise through the first two games at Rogers Centre. The Blue Jays crushed the Yankees 10-1 in Game 1 and followed with a 13-7 drubbing in Game 2, taking a 2-0 series lead. Rookie Trey Yesavage set a franchise postseason record with 11 strikeouts while Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit Toronto’s first postseason grand slam.

The Blue Jays need just one win in New York to advance to the ALCS.

Martinez’s aforementioned comments were made on Sept. 9 during a Blue Jays broadcast, when he learned the Yankees were getting blown out by the Detroit Tigers.

“The Yankees, they’re not a good team,” he said at the time. “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.”

Boone fired back before Game 1, telling reporters the Yankees are “a really good team” and that Martinez was “wrong.”

But when the two actually met in Toronto, Boone’s greeting showed he wasn’t taking it too seriously.

“They have a lot of character,” Martinez later added. “They’ve got a lot of pedigree. And Aaron Boone, when I first saw him in Toronto in our meeting with him before Game 1, he said, ‘I don’t like your hair, either.'”

The Yankees went 5-8 against Toronto during the regular season and 1-6 at Rogers Centre. Both teams finished 94-68, but the Blue Jays won the AL East on the tiebreaker. That forced New York into a Wild Card matchup with Boston while Toronto got a first-round bye.

Martinez’s comments echoed Yankees announcer Michael Kay’s July rant on his ESPN New York radio show, when Kay said the Blue Jays “are not a first-place team” because of their run differential. That sparked a brief feud with Blue Jays broadcaster Jamie Campbell before Toronto rallied to win the division. Martinez made his call in September after the Yankees took two of three from the Blue Jays. With Toronto up 2-0 in the ALDS, he’s looking right so far.

The 76-year-old Martinez has been with the Blue Jays organization for over four decades as a player, manager, and broadcaster. He battled lung cancer earlier this season but returned to the booth in time for Toronto’s playoff run and the first-ever postseason meeting between these AL East rivals.

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann