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Randy Miller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

ANAHEIM, Calif. — The most exhausting part of Yankees manager Aaron Boone's Saturday was just after the final out of his club's 11-1 win over the Los Angeles Angels.

Instead of doing his post-game news conference in his office, which usually occurs following road games, Boone was told to head way up from field level to near the top of Angel Stadium to meet with reporters in a press box-level conference room.

He took the stairs instead of the busy fan-filled elevators that were nearby, and the climb was long enough that Boone was huffing and puffing while answering questions.

About five minutes later, Boone headed back to the stairwell to return to the Yankees clubhouse, and this much-quicker downhill spiral began with a woman security guard yelling for him to show a credential.

“He’s the Yankees manager,” I shot back.

An embarrassed look grew on the woman’s face, then she smiled and called out, “I just met the Yankees manager!”

The rest of the day went very smoothly for Boone and the Yankees, who were up 10-0 after two innings and breezed to their eighth win in a row.

The news of the day included Boone commenting on the Jets drafting quarterback Sam Darnold in the first round on Friday.

Like Darnold, Boone attended college at Southern Cal.

Here is Boone's reaction to that plus other news Yankees fans need to know Sunday:

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Harry How | Getty Images

Boone reacts to Jets taking Darnold

Aaron Boone was in sitting in an end zone suite at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., waiting for the opening kickoff to the Pac-12 championship football game when the news broke last Dec. 1 that he would be the Yankees’ next manager.

An Arizona resident, Boone traveled to Northern California with his 12-year-old son to watch his alma mater.

Boone is a big fan of Southern Cal football, and he left happy.

USC beat Stanford 31-28.

The Pac-10 championship game MVP was Trojans redshirt sophomore quarterback Sam Darnold, who completed 17 of 24 passes for 325 yards and two touchdowns.

Four months later, Darnold will be a New Yorker, too, as he was picked third overall in the 2018 NFL Draft by the Jets on Friday night.

Boone approves.

“We have to get him out to a Yankees game,” Boone said Saturday. “Excited that he'll be in the Big Apple."

Boone added that he thinks Darnold will be the Jets’ QB “long-term.”

Boone, by the way, is a Southern California native who was a college third baseman for USC from 1992-94. He’s been following Trojans football very closely since the 1980s.

"I remember watching those games in the Rodney Peete era, and I just fell in love with USC football," he told USC.edu last year. "To this day, it's a major part of my life. I follow it so closely. I follow all the recruiting. ... I don't know if hobby is the right word or passion, but it's just something I love to follow and be a part of."

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Rich Schultz | Getty Images

Praise for Stanton's defense

Still new to left field, Giancarlo Stanton’s play there has made dramatic improvement since he looked lost at the position at times during spring training.

During Friday night’s win over the Angels, he made a couple of nice running catches in left.

“Those are impact plays,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I’m happy for him that a lot of his work showed up in a big way.”

A right fielder when he played for the Miami Marlins from 2010-17, Stanton volunteered to move around following his offseason trade to the Yankees, who already have a young superstar in right in Aaron Judge, a great defensive player.

Through Saturday, Stanton had made 11 starts in left, four in right and 11 at DH.

“Coming to New York … all he’s been is a great teammate,” Boone said. “We’re going to DH you, we’re going to throw you in left, put you in right. And all he’s done is worked his butt off and I’m so appreciative of a guy of his stature … the work he’s put in.”

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Jayne Kamin-Oncea | USA TODAY Sports

Why Yanks are going with 2-man bench

Aaron Boone has been managing this weekend with probably the smallest bench in big-league history.

The Yankees have been carrying 13 pitchers and 12 position players of late, and that’s left them with just two extra position players due to first baseman Tyler Austin serving his four-game suspension for his recent fight in Boston.

The Yankees’ only extra position players on Saturday night were utility infielder Ronald Torreyes (pictured above) and backup catcher Austin Romine. The night before it was only outfielder Brett Gardner and Romine.

Why not drop a reliever and add a bench player at least until Austin can play again Tuesday in Houston?

“Just where we are personnel wise, I just think we’ve kind of made the decision that this is how we want to roll,” Boone said. “It’s as simple as that. There’s a lot of discussion about it. We’ve had a lot of conversations about it. Not to say it’s an easy call by any means, but it’s something that we kind of decided as an organization. We’ll evaluate each day.”

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The Yankees got into a bind during Friday’s game when Gardner pinch-hit for Torreyes, who was playing third base. Instead of moving Neil Walker from first base to third and playing Romine at first the next inning, Boone opted to put DH Miguel Andujar at third, and that forced the Yankees to put the pitcher in the DH spot.

“We still had Romine, but if we were in a real leverage spot later in the game, we were prepared to send a pitcher up there (to hit),” Boone said. “It’s just kind of the way that you have to roll with it when you don’t have an ideal situation.”

Which pitchers were candidates to hit?

“We had a couple guys,” Boone said. “We had (Masahiro Tanaka) and Sonny (Gray) with their spikes on. (David) Robertson has been begging me for an at-bat for about a month! You never know. We were all hands on deck (Friday) night. It was fun to see everyone kind of scrambling and hooked up and ready to contribute however they needed to.”

Left-hander CC Sabathia is a career .212 hitter with three in 118 at-bats, but his recent history of knee, hamstring and hip issues took him out of the running.

"We don’t need CC doing anything (out of the ordinary) right now,” Boone said.

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Baby Bombers Torres, Andujar detail their instant success

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Bill Kostroun | AP

Lind raking in low minors

Veteran first baseman Adam Lind, back in the Yankees’ system for the second time in three months as an insurance policy, has spent the last week getting himself into game shape playing for high-A Tampa.

Lind looks ready at least for Triple-A ball, as he’s hitting .483 (7-for-12) in four Florida State League games with a double, four RBIs, two walks and one strikeout.

Lind, 34, joined the Yankees organization on a minor-league deal for the second time this year on April 18.

After having a good 2017 season playing for the Washington Nationals – the left-handed hitter batted .303 with 14 homers and 59 RBIs in 267 at-bats over 116 games – he couldn’t find a job last winter and signed a minor-league contract with the Yankees on March 2. Twelve days later, Lind was released.

What would it take for Lind to get a call-up from the Yankees?

Probably a setback or another injury for Greg Bird, who is due to return from March ankle surgery sometime in May, plus an injury to one of the two Yankees who have been filling at first base, Tyler Austin or Neil Walker.

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Kim Klement | USA TODAY Sports

Frazier shows rust in rehab games

Outfielder Clint Frazier, finally playing again after a long layoff due to an early spring training concussion, was 1-for-4 with a run scored and a strikeout in his third rehab game in three days Saturday for high-A Tampa.

Frazier hasn't hit much thus far, as he's just 1-for-11 with three walks, three strikeouts and two stolen bases in his three games.

He’s likely to be activated from the disabled list and optioned to Triple-A in the coming days.

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Lynne Sladky | AP

Drury update

Third baseman Brandon Drury’s third scheduled minor-league rehab game with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre was rained out Saturday night.

He’s scheduled to play for the RailRiders on Sunday, and depending on how that goes, the Yankees might activate him from the DL on Monday for the opener of a four-game series in Houston.

Drury, who was 4-for-7 in his first two rehab games, was put on the DL on April 7 after leaving the previous night’s game with blurry vision and a severe migraine headache.

When Drury returns, he’ll probably be getting disappointing news that he’s lost his starting job to rookie Miguel Andujar, who is hitting .312 with three homers, 12 RBIs and an MLB-high 12 doubles in 19 games.

Drury hit .217 with a homer and four RBIs in eight games before being shelved. He also committed three errors in seven games playing third, one more than Andujar has there in 17 games, 16 as a starter.

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Kelvin Kuo | USA TODAY Sports

Shorthanded Angels

The Angels played without two key players on Saturday night and they could be without pitcher/DH Shohei Ohtani and shortstop Andrelton Simmonds again in Sunday night’s ESPN nationally televised game.

Ohtani was forced to leave Friday’s game with a mild left ankle sprain, and after a day of rest, he said after Saturday’s game that he was “feeling a lot better.

He’s hoping to DH against the Yankees on Sunday and make his next scheduled start Tuesday against Baltimore, but the Angels likely will be extra cautious with their rookie phenom.

As for Simmons, he reaggravated his right forearm playing against the Yankees on Friday night and was a late scratch for Saturday after being in manager Mike Scioscia’s original lineup. He’s been sore since last Sunday when he was hit by a pitch in the forearm facing San Francisco Giants right-hander Johnny Cueto.

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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.