HOUSTON — Aaron Boone insists it is not personal.

Despite his sixth ejection of the season on Wednesday, which ties him for the most in the major leagues, and his spirited arguments thereafter, the Yankees manager insists that he maintains a generally good relationship with most umpires across the league—albeit with an unusual method of demonstrating it.

“I’m sure there’s a good handful that don’t like seeing me,” Boone remarked Thursday afternoon. “There’s probably a few I’m not thrilled to see either. However, I’d say on the whole—it’s easy for me to distinguish. It’s not that personal with them. I’m just advocating for the [strike] zone. But we’re all human beings, and you enjoy some people and others not as much. That’s just how it goes.”

Brian Walsh felt the brunt of Boone’s anger Wednesday night after the home plate umpire seemingly missed several calls with Devin Williams pitching, as the Yankees reliever failed to secure the game.

Walsh ejected both Williams (the first of his career) and Boone (the 45th of his career) as they walked off the mound and made comments to him — Williams told Walsh he missed four calls — even if neither was overly emphatic (at least to start).

The Yankees then got even more infuriated in the ninth inning, when Jazz Chisholm Jr. struck out looking at a pitch that appeared to be outside the zone on a full count to end the game with Giancarlo Stanton standing on deck as the go-ahead run.

“I don’t think they ever do something intentionally,” Boone said. “Now, there’s probably a subconscious factor to things that sometimes probably works in our favor when you’re jockeying and fighting for things. Sometimes they probably lean the other way. But I don’t think it’s ever intentional by an umpire if they don’t like me or they’re angry with me or they like me. I think they’re out there wanting to get everything right.”

More so than usual, multiple Yankees players criticized the umpiring in their postgame interviews with reporters while Chisholm took to social media and reposted Knicks forward Josh Hart calling for Walsh to be suspended.

Alas, Walsh was back at third base for Thursday’s series finale, though his performance on Wednesday was evaluated poorly.

The X account Umpire Scorecards graded Walsh as having a 90 percent accuracy in Wednesday’s game, missing 16 calls out of 167 pitches.

His calls favored the Astros by 1.4 runs, according to the account.

“We go back and watch video, try to get better,” catcher Austin Wells said. “I hope those guys [the umpires] are going to do the same.”

On Thursday morning, Boone placed another call to Michael Hill, MLB’s senior vice president of on-field operations, as he often does the day after he is ejected or has an issue with an umpire.

It is impossible to know how much tangible difference those conversations make, though Boone at least seems to appreciate them.

“As much as I get into these things with umpires, probably more than any other manager, it’s just because I know how much we preach to our guys about controlling the strike zone,” Boone said. “It’s something that I’m always going to passionately fight for and defend in the moment. But I also have tried to acknowledge, and I mean it, I think for the most part a lot of these umpires are as good as they’ve ever been. The way they train now, the way they’re graded, the way they’re scrutinized and things like that, I feel like there’s a ton of great umpires out there. 

“It’s just, we see when they miss by that much and we’re on them.”

The ironic part of Boone’s frequent arguing with umpires is that since it was used on a trial basis this spring, he has been staunchly against the idea of instituting that version of the automated ball-strike (ABS) challenge system in the regular season, despite that it is likely coming by next season.

“To me, I’d like to see it on consequential calls, meaning a Ball 4 or a Strike 3,” Boone said. “But I think it’s coming in some way, shape or form and you’ve got to adapt to it.”