The Yankees took care of business against the Mets on Saturday night, coming away with a 9-3 victory.

After the final out, though, the Yankees couldn’t do their typical handshake line, as it’s now prohibited under MLB’s health and safety protocols for the 2020 season.

That small moment served as a reminder of just how different things will be this baseball season, with no fans in the seats and players keeping themselves distanced from each other.

“We didn’t (rehearse our postgame handshakes), so that was really weird and really awkward,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said afterwards.

“I thought Luis Rojas did a great job on the mound visits, because I haven’t done that in this world either. He was good at going to the edge of the dirt there and being pretty disciplined. I thought they set a nice example. But afterwards I actually said … what should we do after? Hopefully we can get a little creative, especially in the regular season where it’s a big deal when you win a game and I don’t want to lose that.”

But when it came to the game on the field, Boone was pleased with the way his team played. The Yankees outhit the Mets 12-8 and played a much cleaner game overall.

Boone was happy with the competitive edge he saw from his team, even though it was just an exhibition game that won’t count towards the standings.

“For being an exhibition game, it felt really competitive. We wanted to do really well, and it had that feeling throughout the game of what it’s like to be in the dugout in a big-league game when you’re competing to perform well, to win,” said Boone. “It had some of those feelings to it. Still not totally normal, but part of that is you’re trying to get guys into the game, and you have kind of a plan. There were some things that became normal.

In many ways, Saturday’s game proved to be a trial run for the Yankees and Mets, with both teams adapting to the new protocols and learning the way baseball will be played in 2020.

It was certainly different, but Boone, like the players who took the field, was excited to just be back to baseball.

“I thought by and large it went really well. It was easy for us to kind of go through our routine and get our work in,” Boone said. “It was a lot of fun to compete against somebody else, and it felt that way in the dugout. It was competitive and it was fun to be a part of that.”

Popular in the Community