NEW YORK – Reminiscing is fun and the Toronto Blue Jays certainly made some life-long memories at Yankee Stadium last October during the American League Division Series. Still, back in the Bronx for the first time since, there was limited appetite for wistful trips down memory lane.
“That was last year,” Vladimir Guerrero Jr. bluntly told a throng of reporters in the visitors' dugout after batting practice.
Fair enough, especially given the circumstances of the moment for the Blue Jays, who are still trying to find some steadiness to their roster and their game after a slow and injury-filled opening to the year.
Put simply, “we need to start playing better,” said manager John Schneider. “Your antenna always goes up when you're playing a division team. I think the guys like playing here. There's always a good atmosphere here and they're a damn good team. So this is a good test for us, these next four days.”
Well, they blew the first part Monday night, when Yariel Rodriguez came on in the seventh with a two-run lead, two outs and the bases clear and proceeded to surrender two-run homers to Cody Bellinger and Jazz Chisholm Jr. that propelled the Yankees to a 7-6 win.
The Blue Jays had done so much well to that point, with Ernie Clement hitting a three-run homer in the fourth, George Springer responding with a solo shot in the fifth – his first since March 30, a span of 23 games – when the Yankees tied the game 3-3 the previous half-inning, and Clement adding a run-scoring fielder’s choice in the sixth that made it 5-3.
Canadian lefty Adam Macko made his big-league debut in the sixth, coming in with two out and one on to promptly retire J.C. Escarra on four pitches to end the inning, and then came back out to get Paul Goldschmidt and Ben Rice to start the seventh.
That handed a clean slate to Rodriguez, who gave up a single to Aaron Judge before Bellinger went deep, then walked pinch-hitter Trent Grisham before Chisholm dinged one off the foul pole, a 5-3 lead turned into a 7-5 deficit in the span of four batters.
Jesus Sanchez ripped a pinch-hit RBI double in the ninth as the Blue Jays tried to rally off David Bednar, but with two on Springer struck out and Guerrero grounded out to end an entertaining opening tilt between the rivals.
“Hindsight's always 20/20. We were a little short in the 'pen and we talked about getting (Rodriguez) in, getting him out … just needed an out there, really,” said Schneider. “You give them credit for not missing mistakes.”
The Blue Jays need their bullpen to run deep right now with Patrick Corbin, who only went four innings but avoided major damage while surrendering three runs, and, for the time being, Spencer Miles in a bulk role, fortifying their depleted rotation.
Unable to consistently count on five innings out of two starters’ spots puts enormous pressure on the other starters – Dylan Cease has thrown seven innings in each of his past three starts and needs to get deep again Tuesday – and a busy bullpen covering gaps.
“You need everyone to step up on days when you're a little bit thin,” said Schneider. “I always feel the worst in hindsight when it doesn't work out. But yeah, when the bullpen gets taxed, that can happen.”
Miles went 3.2 innings and a career-high 56 pitches Saturday and Thursday’s finale in the Bronx will be built around him throwing bulk again, behind an opener if not as the starter.
Having missed most of the past three seasons due to injury, navigating his workload will be somewhat “uncharted,” said Schneider, and “with his history, you don't want to move him back and forth too much. If we're going to do it, try to be consistent with it … so trying to be a little bit more strategic and consistent with him for the time being.”
The offence did its part to help patch things over Monday but the Blue Jays went 8-5 against the Yankees last year – securing the tiebreaker that gave them the AL East title and a better path in the post-season – by playing a tight game they have yet to consistently replicate this year.
An example of that came in the bottom of the fourth, when Davis Schneider nearly made a brilliant sliding grab on an Anthony Volpe liner to left, the ball just popping out his glove enough to overturn an out call via replay. Volpe then stole third and then scored on Escarra’s sacrifice fly to right, narrowly evading Brandon Valenzuela’s tag with his hand at the plate.
Goldschmidt, who took Corbin’s first pitch of the game deep to open the scoring, followed with an RBI double that made it 3-3.
“The inning where they got a couple there is just kind of strange,” lamented Corbin. “A ball that Davis almost caught there, heck of a play, and then just a close play at the plate. Tough way to lose it. Offence did a great job coming back and get the lead there and we just couldn't hold it up.”
Macko, a 25-year-old Slovakian-born, Alberta-raised lefty, called his debut “surreal” and drew praise from John Schneider for the way he handled his frame.
Walking out from the bullpen, he said his “knees were weak” and then “the lights went out and I was like, this is a cool entrance, is this for me? Like, what? I'm on the road.”
“It was very cool and honestly blacked out for a lot of it,” Macko continued. “Once I got on the mound, it did feel like, oh, I've, I've done this before, we're going to be OK, but the emotions were something I've never felt before. It was amazing.”
Amazing is also how things went for the Blue Jays against the Yankees a year ago, but that’s irrelevant now. Before the game, New York manager Aaron Boone praised the visitors, saying “they're always formidable, feel that way now, they've dealt with a lot of injuries here in the first portion of the season, through it all, they've pitched really well.”
Later, speaking about his own team, he added, “you're playing tight, razor thin games, one thing doesn't go right, it can cost you.”
The Yankees learned that the hard way against the Blue Jays a year ago. The opposite was true in their first meeting this time around.
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