TORONTO — There were no suspicious side-eye glances, no shouting matches and no name-calling, but the Blue Jays’ 3-0 win over the New York Yankees on Wednesday was still nonetheless dramatic after Toronto broke an 0-0 tie by walking it off in the 10th inning on a three-run home run by Danny Jansen.
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After the Blue Jays failed to cash in on scoring opportunities all game long —they were 1-for-17 with runners in scoring position — they finally broke through in the extra frame. With one out and two on base, Jansen hit a first-pitch slider off Yankees reliever Wandy Peralta into left-centre field, sending the Rogers Centre crowd home happy.
“I was going to be aggressive,” said Jansen, who authored his second walk-off hit in four days. “I was just going to try to get something in the air.”
DJ has decided this will be the final song of the night 🎶 #WALKOFF pic.twitter.com/oOkqY7wO04
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) May 18, 2023
The first two games of this four-game series between Toronto and New York, which the Yankees won, packed enough drama that Bravo might show up Thursday to start filming a reality TV show.
It all began Monday when the Sportsnet broadcast caught Aaron Judge taking suspicious sideward looks during an eighth-inning at-bat in which he hit a 462-foot home run off Blue Jays reliever Jay Jackson. The fallout continued into Tuesday. Judge was “not happy” the TV broadcast implied he was doing something improper. The Blue Jays acknowledged their own players have to guard against revealing information but explained they took exception to the fact that Yankees coaches were standing outside of the designated boxes along the foul lines, believing it may have given them a better view to gather information. That issue spilled over into the game when shouting matches ensued between the dugouts over where coaches were standing on the field.
In an interview with The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, Jackson revealed he had been tipping his pitches in view of Yankees first base coach Travis Chapman. The Blue Jays had informed Jackson, who was optioned to Triple A on Tuesday, that he may have had a tell. “We try to do a lot of work on our own guys to make sure that they’re clean,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said Wednesday. Asked if Jackson’s comments changed the way he viewed the last two days, Schneider said no.
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So this all set the stage for Wednesday’s game, where there were no extracurriculars but it was still a tightly contested scoreless affair until the end.
Blue Jays starter Chris Bassitt continued his run of brilliance, pitching seven shutout innings against the Yankees, allowing just three hits with a walk and seven strikeouts. His performance is all the more impressive when it was revealed after the game that the right-hander was battling a sinus infection. Knowing he wasn’t feeling well, the plan coming into the start was that Bassitt and his catcher, Alejandro Kirk, would take several mound visits to give him a breather every now and then.
“Just a lot of head pressure,” Bassitt said of how he was feeling. “When my heart rate got up, I had a really bad headache kind of thing, so basically, try to pitch like a zombie today.”
His outing left his teammates, including Jansen, impressed. “He’s a dawg,” Jansen said. “He’s competitive. He’s so good. So smart. And the way he pitches, the way he prepares. Not feeling himself and still doing that, he’s a tough dude.”
Dating back to his start against Seattle on April 30, Bassitt has now pitched a career-high 27 consecutive scoreless innings, the second-longest single-season streak in franchise history and third longest overall. Over his last eight starts, Bassitt has gone 5-1 with a 1.71 ERA and has 48 strikeouts. Asked what’s been the key to his success recently, Bassitt said it’s been about “executing a game plan.”
“I know moving to the middle of the rubber has really opened up a lot of things for me,” he said about a move that was inspired by former teammate Max Scherzer. “I’m still learning a lot of how my pitches play in that area. But overall, it’s just more so kind of me and Pete (Walker’s) plan coming in and just executing it.”
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Added Schneider: “His stuff is really good. He’s holding his velo, he is executing inning after inning and I think he’s keeping hitters off-balance, so I think he’s just in a pretty good little run right now, but that’s the kind of stuff that he can do.”
The Yankees countered with their ace Gerrit Cole and he held a Blue Jays lineup, which has a few more guys battling illness, scoreless through six innings, allowing seven hits with two walks and six strikeouts.
The Blue Jays had their chances against Cole, including in the third inning when they loaded the bases but left fielder Whit Merrifield popped up in foul territory. They had a prime opportunity again when Cole issued back-to-back singles to begin the seventh inning. He was replaced by Yankees reliever Clay Holmes, who retired the next three batters, ending the threat.
After Blue Jays lefty Tim Mayza pitched his way out of a bases-loaded jam in the eighth by striking out pinch-hitter Anthony Volpe, the Blue Jays began the bottom of the inning with yet another chance to score. Brandon Belt singled then Merrifield hit a bouncing ground ball to Yankees third baseman DJ LeMahieu, who bobbled it (it was ruled a hit). But when Kirk lined out to Volpe at short, pinch runner Cavan Biggio was doubled off at second base after he strayed too far from the bag, squashing the Blue Jays’ momentum in the inning.
Blue Jays closer Jordan Romano entered and pitched two scoreless innings, preserving the 0-0 tie in the ninth and 10th. In the extra frame, the Yankees had a man on third with one out, but Romano struck out Gleyber Torres on a high fastball then after the Blue Jays intentionally walked Judge, who has three home runs this series — “I’ve seen enough of Aaron Judge over the last couple days and the last couple of years,” Schneider said — Romano struck out Anthony Rizzo. Romano has still yet to allow a run in eight appearances at home.
The Blue Jays began the 10th with Biggio on second and he advanced to third when Merrifield reached on an error from Volpe. After Kirk grounded out to a five-man infield, Jansen focussed on getting the ball in the air and did exactly that when he launched the ball 414 feet into left-centre field, capping off the third straight not-boring game between the Yankees and Blue Jays in winning fashion for the home team.
“It’s definitely an exciting feeling and coming into the series, that’s two good teams going at it,” Jansen said. “Every game is important, right? And so, we knew it was going to be a battle throughout the series, so it’s good. We’ll just try to build momentum off it and got one more game against them tomorrow.”
(Photo: Dan Hamilton / USA Today)
