TAMPA — Aaron Boone’s first time managing a baseball team at any level produced a 100-win season, a wild-card game victory and finished two ALDS wins shy of going to the ALCS.

Yet, when those two victories against the blood-rival Red Sox didn’t come and sent the Yankees into the offseason, loud voices screamed that Boone’s decisions to stick with Luis Severino and CC Sabathia in Games 3 and 4 were mortal sins. Self-loathing Yankees fans called for Boone’s head to roll down River Ave.

As Boone sat in his George M. Steinbrenner Field office Friday, losing to the Red Sox stuck with him. But the nature of his job didn’t allow him to feel like a safe had dropped on him from the upper deck.

Instead he approached it logically, understanding the reason he was roasted by some. What he didn’t do Oct. 8 and 9 was serve himself a jumbo portion of second-guess.

“I would say not to where it weighed on me. I second-guess myself or something we may have done all the time. Little and big, whether it worked or didn’t,” Boone said. “That’s a lot of times the conversations after a game we have, even if something worked. ‘Probably should have done this there.’ That kind of stuff happens all the time. I certainly evaluate those things and certainly spent a little more time evaluating those things.”

Boone is smart enough and honest enough to understand the criticism.

“No, but there is a case to be made for a couple of things, absolutely,” Boone said when asked if he went home and questioned whether he should have done things differently. “But I think that gets back to one of the beauties of our game, especially if you are not the last team standing. There is gray area during the course of a game, a win or a loss. It’s easy to have a different opinion on.”

Trailing 3-0, entering the fourth inning of Game 3 at Yankee Stadium, Boone stuck with Severino with the intent his ace could handle the lower third of the Red Sox order. Instead, Brock Holt and Christian Vazquez singled. With Jackie Bradley Jr. due up, Boone stayed with Severino, who some believe was tipping his pitches, and watched him walk the No. 9 hitter.

Lance Lynn surfaced from the pen and allowed all three inherited runners to score, and the Red Sox punished the Yankees, 16-1.

The next night, Sabathia gave up three runs in the third, two of them with two outs. Zack Britton replaced Sabathia to start the fourth, and the second-guessing engulfed the Stadium during a season-ending, 4-3 loss.

Boone didn’t attempt to delete the sour taste of losing to the Red Sox, who inflicted more pain on the Yankees by then winning the World Series.

“I think it sticks,” Boone said. “It was easy for me to get back at it and get back on the horse and turn the page to a degree. It’s the offseason, what are we doing to get better? So it was easy for me to get right back in the trench to work but you know you want the parade.”

After the Yankees made a strong bullpen deeper, added DJ LeMahieu and James Paxton but lost Didi Gregorius for possibly the first two months or maybe longer, Boone was asked if his second club can be better than the first.

“Can we be? Yes. I think whether that means we win 100 games or 94 or 104, whatever. On paper I would like to think a little better than last year, but it’s March 1,” Boone said.

Of course there was a learning process for Boone, but that didn’t stop after the ALDS.

“I don’t honestly know if I have a giant takeaway because I feel like it has never stopped. Every day, and it’s a little trite, every day you are kind of learning stuff,” Boone said. “Everything that comes across the desk I’d like to think I am ready for and prepared for, but it’s still the first time it has come across the desk. So I think we did a good job of handling that, but the experience of all that, hopefully you continue to grow and how you react to different things that happen.”