Aaron Boone was asked the question Sunday night, and after any game the rest of the season that features Clay Holmes blowing a save or even wobbling, he’ll certainly get asked it again.

In the moments following the Yankees’ 3-2 loss to the Tigers in extra innings, Boone supported his closer despite Holmes surrendering a one-run lead in the ninth, but he at least left the door open when asked if he would commit to Holmes moving forward — through the rest of the regular season and however far the Yankees go in the playoffs.

“Look, we’ll see as we go,” Boone said at his press conference in Williamsport, Pa. “Look, we have a lot of really good options, but Clay, he’s had some tough breaks back there that’s led to that. I can think of a couple of them where we didn’t make a play and it goes on him, but it’s not really — the reality is he’s throwing the ball really well.

“That said, we got a lot of guys that I feel like are throwing the ball really well in some certain situations, but right now, Clay’s the guy.”

But do the Yankees actually have a “lot of guys” who could replace Holmes and record outs in the most high-stakes moments of a game?

Their internal options aren’t promising or, at the very least, obvious, and of the relievers general manager Brian Cashman acquired at the trade deadline, Mark Leiter Jr. is struggling and Enyel De Los Santos already has been designated for assignment.

So maybe it gets to the point where the Yankees need to demote Holmes from his closer spot, even if it’s a temporary reset like the Mets gave Edwin Diaz earlier in May. Maybe it makes sense to try Lou Trivino or Ian Hamilton in that spot after the injured relievers return to the majors.

But if the Yankees were to experiment with another pitcher on their active roster in Holmes’ spot, they would be sacrificing experience to get a jolt.

Holmes, even in his down season, has collected 26 saves — tied for sixth-most in MLB — in 2024. The other seven relievers on their active roster have combined for 26 across their entire careers, with Leiter and Tommy Kahnle tied for the most with seven each. Hamilton (two career saves) has proven to be an effective late-inning reliever when healthy, and Trivino in 285 games has collected 37 saves, including 22 with Oakland in 2021.

In the final month-plus of the season, and once playoff baseball arrives in October, any decision bumping Holmes from his spot as closer would come with an experience risk.

Still, Holmes’ numbers continue to form a compelling case to suggest Boone could (should? will?) at least change something if his current trend continues. Five of Holmes’ blown saves have occurred against AL East opponents, and another two unfolded when facing opponents — the Mariners and the Phillies — the Yankees could see in the postseason.

As The Post’s Mark W. Sanchez noted, opponents have hit .348 against Holmes’ slider this season — up from .260 last year — and .350 on balls in play. On Sunday, after starting the ninth inning with a strikeout, Holmes allowed a double to Colt Keith on a sinker. He allowed a two-out single to Jace Jung on a sinker. He needed 22 pitches to get through five Detroit hitters.

“The breaking balls felt good,” Holmes said Sunday after his appearance, “and, you know, I feel like it’s one of those things where, you know, felt pretty good, just two pitches there got me.”

The problem, though, is that two pitches here and two pitches there add up. For Holmes, that has equated to the 10 blown saves — and now a string of questions about whether he should keep the role that made him an All-Star this season.

The Yankees’ bullpen, usually a strength, keeps inching closer to a crisis at its most important spot — and at the most important time.

Today’s back page

Number of the day

0️⃣ The number of walkoff RBIs that Francisco Alvarez had in the major leagues before he connected on a titanic home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the Mets a 4-3 victory over the Orioles at Citi Field on Monday.

It is the number of home runs Alvarez had hit since July 26 as the 22-year-old catcher was mired in a 9-for-51 slump.

And it is the number of strikes in the count, with three balls, when Alvarez got the green light to swing away and help the Mets open a crucial 10-game stretch on a joyous note.

Q&A with … Andre Agassi

One week before the U.S. Open begins, Andre Agassi — the former No. 1-ranked tennis player who won the tournament twice, in 1994 and 1999 — spent time playing in a pickleball exhibition at Life Time in Midtown while also unveiling a new equipment partnership with JOOLA, which creates equipment for pickleball and table tennis.

He spoke with The Post about the anniversaries in Queens, the state of the United States’ professional tennis players and the pickleball “fuse.”

Q: What is it about pickleball that you think has captured all of the attention and hype?

A: Yeah, fair enough, so in my experience with it, what I’ve realized is there’s a couple factors at work. First of all, there’s a low point of entry, meaning that anybody can just pick up a pickleball and racket and like be able to do it on some level, and the rate of improvement is so quick — in the sense that no matter what level you are, you’ll always feel that level of success and getting better. And then there’s so much, the proximity allows for real community, and it’s not like tennis where you have to spend a year to figure stuff out to really enjoy the competing side of things. Like you can actually play for just a little bit, and then you can just jump in the deep end and start to compete, start to play against your friends and then the learning curve gets quicker. To me, that’s why it’s gonna, like participation-standpoint, it’s only gonna grow.

Q: The U.S. Open starts next week, and 30 years ago was your first title here. When you look back on that, when you’re closing out that final set in that final match, what do you remember about that moment?

A: Yeah, Michael Stich. 6-1, 7-6. 7-5. So I was serving for it at 6-5 with a little wind behind my back, and I’ll never forget match point at 40-15. It was like, I hit a wide serve. He hit it kinda mid-court, a little deep, and I just wanted it over with. I was so nervous, I panicked and I just decided to do what any champion does in those moments and completely, just utterly kamikaze, like just commit. I just hit the forehand inside-out, and I just came to the net — which is unlike me. I never came to the net unless I was shaking hands, but that’s how nervous I was that I just made a horrible decision. He got the ball down. I picked up a two-handed backhand, half-volley, but, you know, it’s just, I couldn’t believe it. I was unseeded that year. Beat, I think, five different seeds, and it was the first time I kinda won on my terms. I felt like my first Slam at Wimbledon [in 1992] — that wasn’t by accident, of course you have to, I didn’t believe that I could win it. That [U.S. Open] was the first Slam where every match, I felt like I can do it if I just bear down and play your tennis. So to do it on your terms was a big step toward me believing that I could repeat it.

Q: Five years later, you did repeat it here, beating Todd Martin. A lot happened in those five years. You went down and back up. When you close out that match, what was the feeling in that moment after the brutal stretch you had been through?

A: Listen, I had already won the French, which was the last of the four. So I felt like I was playing with house money at that point, and that was a whole different rhythm of a match. I mean, I didn’t lose my serve the whole match, and I found myself down two sets to one. … I just kept telling myself, ‘Make him earn it. Make him earn it.’ And then I finally broke in the fourth, won the set 6-3 and then I was just pulling away with it physically and kinda confidence-wise. So I broke to win that match at 2-5. … But winning there was just like, it just felt like I was on a significant role in my life, and I had come so full-circle from being at the bottom back to the top again. I felt proud. I mean, I did. I felt a sense of pride.

Q: A lot of talk now is about the drought in American men’s tennis. If you look at the rankings next week, there’s five in the top 20 (Taylor Fritz, Ben Shelton, Tommy Paul, Sebastian Korda, Frances Tiafoe). A lot of youth there, too. Do you feel there’s momentum to snap that drought, and what do you think it will take for one of those five to break through?

A: Yeah, I think they’re all incredibly talented and capable of it, having two incredible weeks where they can kind of, if you will, go to heaven and just play their best tennis at the right time. And they all could do it. But I think the biggest factor is [Roger] Federer, [Rafael] Nadal and Novak [Djokovic], hopefully at some point not being in their way, right, because those guys have been very stingy with those Grand Slams. But when you start looking past that to the [Carlos] Alcaraz, [Jannik] Sinners and then the Americans, I mean, they’re absolutely in the mix. It just takes one to show that it’s possible. If you think about it, I taught my generation that you could break in and compete with the best in the world when I was 16 to 18 years old. And then [Michael] Chang came in and sort of said, ‘But you could actually win one.’ And then [Jim] Courier’s like, ‘Well, you can win one and be No. 1 in the world.’ And Pete [Sampras is] like, ‘Well I want some of that, too,’ right? So like everybody was helping each other believe they could do it, and I think this group of Americans can really help each other by stepping up at the right time.

Q: Is that drought as simple as the Big 3 just getting in their way? What goes into a drought this long?

A: I mean, they have how many Slams between those three alone, not to mention [Stan] Wawrinka and [Andy] Murray — who’ve gobbled up a handful collectively together. So there just wasn’t a lot to go around. … But I think we grow up on the hard courts here mostly, and back in my generation, that translated into every surface, maybe except clay. But now growing up on the clay seems to be the big translator to every surface, almost including grass — because everything’s playing slower and heavier and longer rallies and discipline and shot selection and physical discipline and mental, emotional discipline. So I think that’s been a factor, but I think now, this generation’s understanding they just can’t play rock ’em, sock ’em American tennis, you know what I mean? You kinda have to have a little bit more complexity in your approach, and I think they’re starting to do it.

Getting in was the easy part

With their win Saturday in Las Vegas, the Liberty became the first team to clinch a WNBA postseason spot — their fourth consecutive berth, buoyed by a franchise-best 23-4 start, which doubled as a reminder that an organization record of 32 wins from 2023 might last for just 12 months.

Seven of their remaining 13 games are against teams currently outside of the playoff picture. The Liberty finding a way to 33 victories remains plausible.

Given the construction of their roster and the title window they’ve established, a return to the postseason is simply table stakes for Liberty. But it doesn’t make their path to a first title any easier, even if they can secure the No. 1 seed (they hold a 3.5-game lead entering Tuesday). Because for all of the ratings spikes and attendance boons and other statistical jumps that capture — on the business side — just how much the WNBA has grown, perhaps the best example of that from a basketball perspective will materialize at the end of September.

The playoffs last year centered around the Liberty and the Aces — the league’s two superteams — and, to some degree, the Sun. The top three seeds each had a winning percentage of .650 or higher. And the other five teams securing postseason spots dropped off from there, from a .550 winning percentage for the Wings (the No. 4 seed) to .450 for the Sky (No. 8). That quintet, collectively, won three games in the tournament.

The Sky, currently at 11-16, remain on track for the final postseason spot again, but any of the top seven teams could make a run this time.

Caitlin Clark and the Fever have completely reversed their season with 10 wins in their past 15 games dating back to June. They’re in seventh place, and climbing the standings doesn’t seem as unrealistic anymore. The No. 6 Mercury have the WNBA’s second-leading scorer in Kahleah Copper (23.1 points per game), the WNBA’s timeless legend in Diana Taurasi (16.2 points) and another star in Brittney Griner (18.3 points, 6.3 rebounds). The Storm, currently in fifth, followed the superteam blueprint by adding Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins-Smith to Jewell Loyd.

And then there’s the three teams directly behind the Liberty. If the season ended Tuesday, the Liberty’s path might require toppling the Aces (No. 4) in the semis just to get back to the Finals. They’ve defeated the Aces in both regular-season meetings this year, but in a best-of-five series last October, Las Vegas exposed their lack of secondary scoring options and their inability to cover the Aces’ plethora of contributors behind A’ja Wilson and Kelsey Plum. The Lynx have proved they’re legit by toppling the Liberty in the Commissioner’s Cup title game, and the Sun own the league’s second-best record at 19-7.

Still, there will be perks to securing the No. 1 seed. The Liberty would earn home-court advantage throughout the playoffs, host Game 1 of the Finals at Barclays Center if they got there and draw the easiest first-round matchup against likely the Sky or the Dream. But even the Sky have posed difficulties for the Liberty this season. They won the teams’ first matchup back in May, and are the second-best rebounding team in the WNBA — anchored by Rookie of the Year candidate Angel Reese.

“I think there’s way more parity in the league, right?” Liberty center Jonquel Jones told The Post in June, talking about the Aces and the Liberty and the rivalry that emerged last season simply because they were the two superteams. “Any given night, any team can beat anybody. … I think that’s the common theme in the league now is there’s just so much talent and every game is entertaining, so ultimately, that’s gonna bring fans into the arenas, it’s gonna bring fans watching at home and tuning in.

“But it keeps us honest and it makes sure that we are showing up every night and being locked in because any team can beat you.”

So clinching a spot in the playoffs might’ve been the simplest part of the Liberty’s quest for a title. There won’t be any easy series in the final week of September and the first two weeks of October. There might even be some upsets.

And that chaos would mark just the latest sign of the WNBA’s upward trajectory.

What we’re reading 👀

🏈 The Post’s Steve Serby outlines the matchups he’s looking forward to when the Jets and Giants square off in a joint practice ahead of their preseason finale, starting with Sauce Gardner vs. Malik Nabers. How about Aaron Rodgers vs. Bobby Okereke?

🏈 What the Giants’ preseason encounter with the Texans revealed about their young secondary.

🏈 Projected No. 2 wideout Mike Williams says he’s getting close to returning to the Jets.

🏀 Congrats to Ali, Jalen and the growing Brunson family.

⚾ Big game on Tuesday for the Staten Island Little Leaguers.

⚽ How Gotham FC is getting reinforcements from Europe for their NWSL repeat bid.

⚽ And Landon Donovan is an NWSL coach now.

💰 Jeff Bezos, Celtics owner? Free shipping when they trade Jaylen Brown.