TORONTO — Three pitches into Game 2 of this already-on-the-cusp American League Division Series, Trent Grisham, down 1-2 in the count, called for time just as Trey Yesavage had come set, seeking to slow down the opening at-bat’s pace. The 22-year-old, however, wasn’t having it. He didn’t even flinch, remaining in the set position until Grisham dug back in, and once the pitch clock hit eight seconds, fired in a splitter that the centre-fielder could only meekly flail at.
Right then and there, the 2024 first-round pick, who opened the season in low-A and climbed five levels to make three big-league starts, proclaiming himself “built for this,” ahead of his post-season debut, showed exactly how much he was. He stood there to show that the mound was his and no one was going to wrestle control from him, and in perhaps the most dominant playoff start ever by a Toronto Blue Jays pitcher, the New York Yankees never came even remotely close.
“I usually do that,” Yesavage said of standing over the rubber while awaiting Grisham, a trait he picked up during his college days at East Carolina University when his pitching coached showed the staff a video of Ben Joyce doing it at Tennessee and suggested they follow suit. “I just want to let the hitter know that, even if they're not ready, I'm still ready, I don't need a timeout, I'm ready to go as soon as they step in the box.”
Yesavage was ready all game long and, fittingly, another electric Rogers Centre crowd of 44,764 feted him as he walked off the field after retiring Austin Wells to open the sixth, capping 5.1 innings of no-hit, 11-strikeout dominance in a 13-7 victory that gave the Blue Jays a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five.
The performance left his teammates in awe as much as he left the Yankees baffled.
“He was incredible,” said ace Kevin Gausman. “To do that, in that moment, he's different. I feel like I have a really good split and I think his is better. I'll be honest, I've never said that about anybody, especially someone on my team. But he releases from so high, it's such a different, unique look, you don't see many guys throw from up there anymore. And a pitch like that, it's a lefty breaking ball, a really good lefty breaking ball from a right-handed pitcher, which is crazy. It was so much fun to watch him. He absolutely dominated.”
Said Chris Bassitt: “He's got some of the nastiest stuff in the world, but his mental side and how much of a dog he is, I don't think people understand that and they're about to find out. It's incredible just how fearless he is. … We're pretty lucky.”
Said Max Scherzer: “Everybody knows he's got the splitter, but how he throws it in the zone and when he throws it out of zone, he's got a really, really good feel for that. That's why he's striking out 11 guys. They just don't know what to look for. He gives it to you one time, and then the next time it's out of the zone. It's just really tough for hitters to prepare for him.”
A spectacular day at the plate for the Blue Jays turned what projected as a duel versus Yankees ace Max Fried into a coronation for the rookie, who struck out the side around an Aaron Judge walk in the first, K’d six of the first nine batters in his first turn through the lineup, and six in a row during the third and fourth innings.
Only one other batter reached against him, Jazz Chisholm Jr. on a chopper that slid under Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s glove for a harshly scored error, and he was only at 78 pitches when manager John Schneider, booed heavily, came to get him. The Yankees took 31 swings against Yesavage and whiffed on 18 of them.
“This has got to be cloud nine,” he said. “I couldn't imagine a better feeling right now.”
The Blue Jays, meanwhile, jumped Fried early and didn’t let up.
Daulton Varsho opened the second by ripping a liner down the right-field line and turned for third when Judge misplayed the ball. On the next pitch, Ernie Clement flicked a curveball over the wall in left field to open the scoring.
The Blue Jays added on in a different way during the third, when Davis Schneider opened the inning with a walk, went to third on Guerrero’s base hit, and scored on Alejandro Kirk’s grounder to first. Varsho followed with another double to cash in Guerrero and then scored when Clement, down 1-2 in the count, hung back on a changeup and looped a single to left to make it 5-0, the entire inning demonstrative of how their contact can kill.
“There are times where you need a strikeout,” Carlos Rodon, who starts Game 3 for the Yankees, said, “and just the miss isn't there.”
The Blue Jays combined both during the decisive fourth, when they loaded the bases with none out to knock Fried from the game, and after Will Warren caught Davis Schneider looking, Guerrero drilled his team’s first-ever post-season grand slam.
Varsho, with his first of two homers, added a two-run shot later in the inning to make it 11-0, triggering a round of celebratory “Yankees suck” chants, while George Springer’s solo shot made it an even dozen through five.
The Yankees began chipping away at the non-leverage end of the Blue Jays bullpen from there, but not enough to keep from facing elimination at home Tuesday, when Shane Bieber starts for the Blue Jays, trying to close out what could be a stunning sweep.
“You know they're not going away,” John Schneider said of the Yankees. “They're obviously really good, really talented.”
That Yesavage is playing any role in this at all, let alone making a start that ranks up with Dave Stieb’s Game 1 gem versus the Kansas City Royals in the 1985 ALCS (eight shutout innings, three hits, one walk, eight strikeouts), Juan Guzman’s World Series Game 3 domination of Atlanta in 1992 (eight innings, eight hits, two runs, one earned, seven strikeouts) and Marco Estrada’s 2016 ALDS opener at the Texas Rangers (8.1 innings, one run, four hits, six strikeouts), is a crowning organizational achievement.
Believing he had the potential to make such a rapid rise, the Blue Jays developed a plan to manage his innings as he climbed the ladder, ensuring that he could pitch through the post-season if he earned it. Level by level, he did precisely that, even making three appearances out of the bullpen to keep that option open.
But by the time he debuted at Tampa on Sept. 15, striking out nine Rays in five innings of one-run work, it was clear Yesavage deserved a place in the rotation. And after the Blue Jays clinched the AL East, giving them a chance to line up their rotation as they saw fit, pitting his wipeout splitter against a Yankees lineup with the potential to feature six left-handed hitters was an obvious choice.
“He's throwing from the CN tower, so it's an angle that pretty much no one else in the big-leagues is throwing from,” said Bassitt. “It's a look that you can't really practice, you can't go back and say, how you treated this pitcher, treat him like that. There's no real comparison so it's really hard to game-plan for him.
“I think you're going to have to have three or four or five different games of individual at-bats to understand how you need to attack him. I don't know if the playoffs are going to allow teams to do that.”
Yesavage’s calmness underpins the club’s confidence in him and he looked unfazed throughout the day. After finishing his warmup in the bullpen, he dapped up Kirk, tossed the ball to a fan wearing a vintage Stieb jersey, high-fived the coaching staff and took the field as fans in the left-field corner stood and cheered. Beforehand, he thought about his comment Saturday about being built for this stage and told himself that he needed to back it up.
Outwardly showing such confidence is somewhat unusual but Gausman heard every word Yesavage said and “his interview fired me up,” the veteran relayed. “He didn't shy away from any question. For a 22-year-old to be that poised, in front of the brightest lights he's ever been in, he said he was built for this and he showed it. Wow.”
A couple hours later, the whole stadium was saying wow, too, after an outing worthy of a place in Blue Jays lore for its sheer dominance, and for the way it put the team on the brink of its first trip to the ALCS since 2016.
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