DETROIT – Aaron Boone said he wouldn’t mind seeing his former teammate Miguel Cabrera make history with his 3000th hit – as long as it didn’t cost the Yankees.
The Yankees ended up walking Cabrera intentionally in the bottom of the eighth inning – infuriating the crowd at Comerica Park – with first base open in a one-run game.
It prompted a loud, lengthy chant of “Yankees suck” from the announced crowd of 21,529 after Lucas Luetge got a bases loaded double play from Jeimer Candelario, leaving runners on second and third. Boone went to the mound and opted to walk Cabrera to load the bases rather than have him face the left-handed Luetge.
With the crowd booing loudly, the decision backfired, as Austin Meadows followed with a bloop hit to center that scored two runs, to give the Tigers a 3-0 lead. They would lose by the same score.
The crowd stood and cheered for each of Cabrera’s at-bats, as it did prior to his final at-bat on Wednesday, when he was within a hit of the milestone following singles in his first three at-bats of the game.
Cabrera flied to left to end the bottom of the first, struck out to lead off the bottom of the fourth and the sixth, all against Jordan Montgomery.
“He’s one of the great right-handed hitters ever,’’ said Boone, a teammate with Cabrera with the Marlins in 2007, before the game. “He’s one of the smartest players I’ve ever played with.”
Boone also noted the fact Cabrera, who turned 39 on Monday, was already a member of the 500-home run club.
“That’s rarefied air,’’ Boone said. “He’s played in bigger ballparks in Florida and here [in Detroit]. He’s an all-timer. He’s in that… inner-circle of even the Hall of Fame. And he pulls out a lot of joy from the game.”
Albert Pujols is the most recent to get to 3,000 hits, doing so in 2018 with the Angels.
