NEW YORK -- Prior to Game 1 of Wednesday’s split doubleheader against the Pirates at Yankee Stadium, manager Aaron Boone was asked about his opinion of utility specialist José Caballero before New York acquired him at the 2025 Trade Deadline. Boone did not mince words -- with a smile and chuckle, of course.
“I didn’t like him,” Boone said.
Caballero’s gamesmanship has been well-documented already throughout his four-year career, showing off an ability to get under pitchers’ skin at the plate. It already happened once this week, with a confrontation between Pirates pitcher Dennis Santana and Caballero leading to a benches-clearing incident in the series opener on Monday. Santana took exception to Caballero’s manipulation of the pitch timer, leading to a pitch being waved off before Caballero grounded into a double play.
Wednesday’s latest incident will do nothing to quell that discussion. With a runner on and two outs in the bottom of the sixth, Caballero was called for an automatic strike on a pitch-timer violation for the second strike of his at-bat. It was the same move that Caballero often employs, waiting until the last second to lift his head up and be alert towards the pitcher with eight seconds remaining on the pitch timer.
Caballero launched into a discussion with home-plate umpire Quinn Wolcott, with Wolcott being heard on the mics at the plate saying, “You don’t get to do the three or four seconds thing in the box anymore.” Boone and third-base coach Luis Rojas came down to separate Caballero from Wolcott. When second-base umpire Adrian Johnson arrived to continue talking with Boone, Caballero was also heard telling Wolcott, “You’re picking on me.”
As the conference at the plate ended, Yankees hitting coach James Rowson was ejected for yelling in the direction of Johnson as he returned to his position in the infield. Immediately after the lengthy delay, Caballero was called out on strikes on a splitter by Carmen Mlodzinski to end the inning.