Girardi breaks down keys for Yanks to win No. 28

NEW YORK -- Fifteen Octobers have passed since a Yankees manager endured the delicious wait between toasting an American League pennant and the first pitch of a World Series, hunkering down in the windowless office deep under Yankee Stadium’s first-base seats for hours of game-planning against the National League’s best.

Joe Girardi knows exactly what Aaron Boone is going through right now.

“There’s a lot of thinking that goes on,” Girardi said in a telephone interview. “You’re thinking about matchups, but it’s also really enjoyable, because it’s not like you have to turn around and start the next day. You can actually kind of enjoy what your team has accomplished and get excited for the World Series.

“There’s a lot of decisions in the roster you’re going to make. I look at L.A., and they’ve got some pretty good left-handed hitters, so what does that mean for the Yankees and what they do in their bullpen, and how they approach it? You start trying to go through every scenario you can. You can never cover everything, but you try.”

As the Yankees head west to open the World Series on Friday evening at Dodger Stadium, Girardi will be in the building, too, joining Meredith Marakovits to provide pre- and postgame analysis on the YES Network and the YES/Gotham Sports app.

Girardi said he was not surprised when the Yankees claimed their first pennant since 2009, pointing to their AL-best 94-win record and that the club produced timely hits against the Royals in the AL Division Series and vs. the Guardians in the AL Championship Series. In the star-studded Dodgers, he sees this club facing its most formidable challenge yet.

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“This is a fantastic series,” Girardi said. “The clubs are somewhat similar in a sense. They’re both very good offensively, and the back ends of their bullpens have thrown pretty well. I know this is truly an exciting time for Aaron Boone, and I’m really happy for him, because he’s had to work really hard.

“If someone told you that you weren’t going to have your ace [Gerrit Cole] for three months, and you were going to lose a lot of your bullpen early on, you know, this could be a tough year. Your offense had to be a lot better than it was the year before. There were a lot of questions when they left Spring Training. They answered all the questions. It has to be extremely rewarding.”

Girardi said he sees the World Series coming down to “big-time performances from big-time players,” noting that while Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton starred in the Yankees’ ALCS victory over the Guardians, he sees Gleyber Torres as an “unsung hero” thus far in the postseason. Girardi views the Yanks’ biggest challenge as handling the Dodgers’ prominent left-handed hitters, especially Shohei Ohtani.

“You need to get the eight and nine hitters out,” Girardi said. “You don’t want [Ohtani] coming up in situations where you truly have to pitch to him. It seems like they tried to do a lot of work inside on him [in the NLCS], and if you don’t get it inside enough, he’s going to hammer it. You’re walking a fine line. He’s a great hitter; he’s going to get his hits. Just make sure they’re not with people on base.”

There are not many players left on the Yankees' roster from the 2017 club that Girardi steered one win shy of a pennant, but he’s seen Aaron Judge progress from that season’s AL Rookie of the Year into the club’s captain and one of the faces of baseball.

“He really has developed into the true leader of the team, just an unbelievable force,” Girardi said. “He was unbelievable in 2017, but his holes have gotten much smaller. To hit .322 [in the regular season] with all of this production is truly amazing. He’s a complete player, and the fact he has the ability to play center field at that size is absolutely amazing. He could be playing [in the NFL] on Sundays.”

Prediction time: Girardi said he sees the World Series going the distance, with the Yankees winning in seven games.

“It would mean so much to the city,” he said. “I always think about the people behind the scenes that do so much work to allow the experience for everyone, the fans and players, to be so great. The people that work as vendors, the grounds crew, the marketing department, the coaches that help out in Spring Training.

“The players get in their work, and they’re ready to go. It just means so much to everyone, and it uplifts a whole organization. It’s time again.”