NEW YORK — From finally winning the American League East to ending a seven-game losing streak in the post-season, this Toronto Blue Jays core has slowly and steadily checked off long-sought accomplishments in this ever-astonishing season. Then, in the top of the third inning at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night, when Anthony Santander slashed a single to right field to plate two runs, handing Shane Bieber a 6-1 lead, they appeared to be on the verge of adding yet another item to their list with a stunning sweep of the New York Yankees in the American League Division Series.
But then Bieber hit a rut in the bottom of the third and didn’t get out of the inning. Four straight relievers couldn’t put a lid on the Yankees offence. Aaron Judge counterpunched Vladimir Guerrero’s two-run homer in the first with a three-run homer off the foul pole in left field in the fourth inning on a 99.7-m.p.h. fastball from Louis Varland, the fastest pitch he’s ever taken deep, tying the game. Jazz Chisholm Jr. sent a 99.4-m.p.h. offering from Varland over the wall in right in the fifth to put the home side ahead for the first time, and like that Tuesday’s champagne party became Game 4 Wednesday night (Sportsnet, 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT).
The 9-6 Blue Jays loss did more than just extend the series, too, also resurfacing roster construction questions — particularly the decision to carry Justin Bruihl over Max Scherzer — with a bullpen day that Varland will start versus Cam Schlittler for the Yankees. There will be memories of the Game 2 collapse to the Seattle Mariners in the 2022 wild-card, when they blew an 8-1 lead to lose the series, as well, although this time they’ll get another chance, with what’s now a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five.
Combined with two errors that really changed the game — Isiah Kiner-Falefa bobbling Ben Rice’s two-out chopper in the first which eventually led to Giancarlo Stanton’s RBI single; and Addison Barger, having entered as a pinch-hitter for Kiner-Falefa in the third, dropping an Austin Wells pop-up in the fourth to help set up the Judge homer — the Blue Jays will have plenty to lament and little time to reset.
“It's tough as a whole to play here,” said manager John Schneider. “We did a really good job of coming out and taking the lead. You're talking about giving a really good team extra outs, and you're talking about a really good player turning around a hundred, like, three balls in. You've got to give him credit for that, for one. But I think we just focus on taking care of the ball. Again, it can turn on you in a hurry. You've just got to kind of stop any kind of momentum. Walks and errors will kill you against this team. That was kind of the tipping point, a little bit.”
After a dream start to Game 3, the thought of a Game 4 seemed unfathomable.
Davis Schneider worked a one-out walk in the first off Carlos Rodon and Guerrero, who dominated the first two games, nuked a 2-0 changeup 427 feet to right-centre for a 2-0 lead.
After the Yankees halved the lead with an unearned run, Davis Schneider doubled to open third, Guerrero was walked intentionally, and an out later, Daulton Varsho dunked a ball into short left field that a sliding Cody Bellinger couldn’t come up with. As Bellinger relayed the ball into second, Davis Schneider turned and headed for home, sliding in well ahead of the throw from an inattentive Chisholm at second.
Ernie Clement followed with an RBI single that made it 4-1, Guerrero coming home safely after a Superman slide into the plate, before Santander sliced his two-run single to right.
It was a classic Blue Jays rally.
But the Yankees didn’t go away.
They scratched out a pair of runs in the bottom half on Judge’s RBI double and a Stanton sacrifice fly so deep to centre that Bieber was lucky it didn’t leave. John Schneider pulled him at that point and while Mason Fluharty escaped that inning with a 6-3 edge intact, the Blue Jays weren’t as fortunate in the fourth when Barger dropped Wells’ popper into short left for a two-base error.
“It was pretty swirly out there when it got to its highest point,” said Barger. “I felt like I was in position to make the play, it just started tailing towards the stands a little bit, which is kind of weird for a left-handed fly ball. Usually, it would come back towards the line at the end. It took off the other way, and it hit off my glove.”
Fluharty walked Trent Grisham to exacerbate the miscue and John Schneider turned to Varland, who quickly got Judge 0-2, blowing a middle-middle heater at 100 m.p.h. right by the titan. But his decision to double up on the heater, rather than slow him down with a curveball, turned out to be a bad one as Judge hammered a four-seamer running in on his hands high off the foul pole in left field, a sell-out crowd of 47,399 erupting.
“He made a really good pitch look really bad,” said Varland.
An inning later, the Yankees seized control of the game when Chisholm went deep before an Amed Rosario double and a Wells single later in the inning off Braydon Fisher made it 8-6. Rice’s sacrifice fly in the sixth padded the margin.
“It just goes to show if you leave your foot off the gas for even a second,” said Clement, “a good team will pounce on you and make stuff happen.”
Added Bieber: “I feel like we did an OK job of executing pitches. Obviously, Aaron, the reigning MVP, put a great swing on a tough fastball. Maybe we catch a lucky break there, and it's two feet to the left, and who knows what happens after that. But baseball is baseball. That's the series. It's a tough opponent in the LDS. We look to bounce back.”
Eric Lauer, likely to handle bulk duty Wednesday, Seranthony Dominguez and closer Jeff Hoffman, along with Bruihl, were the only Blue Jays relievers not used Wednesday and will be counted on to do the heavy lifting in Game 4.
Varland threw 20 pitches, Fluharty 19, and Tommy Nance 18, but they and everyone else are available for Wednesday, too, said John Schneider, when they’ll have much less of a safety net. Whether Scherzer, who struggled down the stretch and had issues with tipping when facing the Yankees last month, would have helped make for an interesting debate, although an academic one at this point.
Difficult as it may be, letting a series sweep slip away, it’s on to the next.
“Yeah, we had a spot in the ALCS in our hands when the (game) started, you know what I mean? I know it's 6-1 in the third inning, but we still have a spot like that (Wednesday),” said Schneider. “These guys will be ready to go. It's really comforting for me to see them do that all year. I know they're going to do it again (Wednesday), and you have to take out the outside noise that comes with playing here and all that kind of stuff.
“I’ve got all the confidence in the world in these guys showing up (Wednesday) ready to go and just doing their normal day and competing their asses off.”
One way or the other the Blue Jays will be going home Wednesday night, either full of champagne and getting ready for Sunday’s ALCS opener, or full of angst ahead of a decisive Game 5 versus the Yankees on Friday.
