TORONTO – Of all the back and forth that made this such a compelling instalment of the Toronto Blue Jays–New York Yankees rivalry, the clear animosity between the coaching staffs made for an especially intriguing subplot.
Really, they were the source of every heated exchange during a riveting series capped by Thursday night’s 4-2 Yankees win that gave them three of four over the Blue Jays — from Toronto pitching coach Pete Walker barking at New York third base coach Luis Rojas, to Toronto manager John Schneider’s “shut up, fat boy” toward New York assistant hitting coach Brad Wilkerson, to Yankees manager Aaron Boone’s ungenteel questioning of Walker’s sanity.
It was a gold-mine for lip-readers.
That the players-by-and-large kept their cool within the emotional cauldron speaks to the elite determination and discipline on both rosters. Front and centre in that regard was Aaron Judge, whose sideward glances captured by Sportsnet broadcast cameras Monday night fuelled the enmity, but was also a problem each and every time he stepped to the plate, finishing the four games 6-for-14 with four homers, seven RBIs and five walks.
“There’s really one dude that you look in the lineup and you don’t want him to beat you and I don’t think we did a very good job of that,” said Schneider. “There are definitely ways to get him out. It’s not like the dude is going to hit 1.000. But we did mistakes to a really good hitter and I think that’s kind of what we saw.”
Judge’s two-run shot in the first inning Thursday off Jose Berrios, who left a sinker middle-middle that was appropriately punished 430 feet to centre, opened a 2-0 lead and he was inches away from making it 3-1 in the sixth when he doubled off the top of the wall in right-centre. The drive was initially ruled a double, then ruled a home run and then overturned on replay.
Berrios was otherwise nails, stranding Judge at second before allowing a two-out Aaron Hicks RBI single in the seventh that ended his night. He went 6.2 innings and struck out eight while allowing six hits and a walk, continuing to look more assertive each time out.
“The last time we went to New York he was battling and … we got him,” said Berrios, referring to the three-game series April 21-23 when Judge went a cumulative 1-for-12. “Then these last four days he’s been locked in, been seeing the ball pretty well and he made a few good adjustments that helped him have good success out there against us. This is the game. One day it’s us, one day it’s them.”
A big reason it was them this week is that the Blue Jays struggled to deliver big blows at the plate.
In Tuesday’s 6-3 loss, they went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and then finished 1-for-17, the sole hit being Danny Jansen’s walk-off three-run homer, in Wednesday’s 3-0, 10-inning win.
They had fewer chances against Nestor Cortes and three relievers in the finale, going 0-for-3, but couldn’t capitalize in the seventh when they loaded the bases with one out against Ryan Weber.
After Brandon Belt flew out to shallow left for the first out Vladimir Guerrero Jr., out of the lineup after tweaking his knee Tuesday night, came out to hit for Santiago Espinal and was greeted by a standing ovation from a Rogers Centre crowd of 33,290.
A potentially electric moment went only partially realized as Guerrero’s line drive to centre brought home Whit Merrifield to make it a 3-2 game, before George Springer laced a 96.4 m.p.h. liner to right-centre that ended the frame.
While credit goes to Yankees pitchers for keeping a lid on the Blue Jays, among Schneider’s offensive takeaways from the series is “just having a consistent offensive approach, for one,” he said. “Their whole pitching staff, bullpen included, they have different, varying looks, a lot of heaters at the top of the zone for a lot of their guys, and we have to make that adjustment the next time we see them.”
Bo Bichette was the one consistently dangerous Blue Jays hitter, going deep in the first inning off Cortes and later adding two singles to cap off a seven-hit, one-walk series in which he only came around twice.
Matt Chapman followed Bichette’s first-inning homer with a 327-foot to the base of the wall in right, one of several balls the Blue Jays hit hard, but not quite hard enough.
“We had some opportunities and we couldn’t cash those guys in,” said the steely third baseman. “And I think that’s probably the difference, they got the hits when they needed and we didn’t. That’s a good team. We expected a dogfight this whole series and that’s how every intra-division series is going to be. Baltimore is coming in next and we expect the same thing. It’s a tough division and you’ve just got to be prepared to find ways to win the game.”
The Blue Jays couldn’t do that, extending an odd recent pattern in which they got swept at Boston, swept Pittsburgh, got swept at Philadelphia, swept Atlanta and then dropped three of four to New York.
How much of a role the Yankees’ subterfuge played this week is open to conjecture and will surely be a focal point when the teams next meet in the penultimate week of the regular season.
As for all the noise around this series, “I don’t really care,” said Chapman. “My focus is just on winning the game. That’s where I want our team’s focus – just focus on what we can control and trying to make sure maybe we’re not tipping pitches or whatever it is. But for us, I want to win the game and stick to controlling what we can do to win the game instead of worrying about all the drama. I prefer to stay out of that.”
On that front, coaches on both teams had everyone covered.
