How Aaron Boone thinks Yankees can close gap on Blue Jays

ORLANDO, Fla.— It is a reality that the Yankees and Blue Jays finished the season with the same 94-68 record.It also is a reality that in the ALDS and for much of the regular-season series, the two teams did not look like they were in the same weight class, with the Blue Jays thumping the Yankees time and time again on the way to claiming the American League pennant.

Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Greg Joyce about the inside buzz on the Yankees.Still, Aaron Boone indicated Monday that the gap between the Yankees and Blue Jays is smaller than it may seem.“We ended with identical records last year — I don’t want to discount that they kicked our ass last year,” Boone said at the winter meetings.

“Don’t take it out of context.I would say the gap is [small].

We had the exact same record.But they obviously were a great team last year, an eyelash away from winning a world championship.“They certainly proved to be the better team this year, and hopefully we can close that gap and pass them and others this year.”The Blue Jays, courtesy of winning the season series 8-5 over the Yankees, owned the tiebreaker for the AL East, which gave them a bye and home-field advantage into the ALDS, where they crushed the Yankees by a combined score of 34-19.Boone was asked how the Yankees could close that gap.“Well, I mean, playing better against them is the real simple answer,” he said.

“At the end of the day, we ended up knotted with them [in the division].But in the head to head, they kicked our butt, and especially in those summer months.

In that stretch where we were scuffling a little bit, they beat us up, including a four-game sweep up there, and that obviously ended up really hurting us.”While the Yankees have had a fairly quiet start to their offseason — Trent Grisham accepting the qualifying offer, picking up the club option on Tim Hill and re-signing Ryan Yarbrough — the Blue Jays al...