TORONTO — Alejandro Kirk became the third central character to rejoin the Toronto Blue Jays plot this week and immediately showed how important he is to the trajectory of their story.
The all-star catcher, back from a broken thumb suffered in the team’s seventh game of the season, successfully challenged the first pitch of the game to get Trey Yesavage a strike, doubled in the bottom half of the first to open the scoring, added two more hits including an RBI single in the fifth and guided his pitching staff through a number of tricky spots.
In so many ways, his fingerprints were all over Friday night’s 8-5 win over the New York Yankees, underlining how much he and fellow injured list returnees Dylan Cease and Max Scherzer can help shift the Blue Jays’ narrative.
“Getting there from a position-player standpoint, from a pitching standpoint with some guys coming back and close to coming back. That part is nice,” said manager John Schneider. “You don't really just expect a 3-for-3 night and everything to be perfect, but I think getting some guys back just stabilizes a lot of things. It stabilizes things on the field, it stabilizes things in the clubhouse. So yeah, it's nice.”
Now, the trio can’t write a turnaround on their own, but the way they can help the club function as it should was evident.
Cease and Scherzer restored the rotation to five men and although Scherzer didn’t escape the fourth versus the Phillies on Wednesday, having enough starters to fill out a regular turn should help a taxed bullpen function more optimally with Shane Bieber, due to get at least one more rehab start with triple-A Buffalo, on the horizon.
Kirk, meanwhile, restores a disciplined, miserable at-bat capable of damage against all types of pitchers in the middle of the Blue Jays order, one capable of both cashing in on opportunities created in front of him while building innings for those behind.
"It's just an added glue," is how outfielder Nathan Lukes described having Kirk back in the cleanup spot. "You know what you're going to get — he’s going to compete his ass off, whether he's behind the dish, in the box, DH, whatever. You saw, it was 3-for-3, a walk. He just did it all. We missed him.”
The lineup still misses Addison Barger’s thump — his work is picking up in Dunedin and he could be in rehab games next week, said Schneider — and now is also down Daulton Varsho, who hit the injured list retroactive to Wednesday as his left wrist soreness didn’t abate, leading to a cortisone shot Thursday.
But it’s more whole now with Kirk, whose double in the first was followed by a Kazuma Okamoto homer into the 500 level, the first Blue Jays player to send one into the fifth deck at Rogers Centre since Josh Donaldson in 2017, while his single in the fifth cashed in a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. RBI double.
“It's Kirky, he doesn't budge,” said Schneider. “First pitch, challenge, no biggie. Double, single, single, walk. He's just steady. He's one-of-one, man. It's great to have him back for a variety of reasons. The at-bats were great. Just having him back was great. He's a damn good player, man.”
George Springer added a two-run homer in the second, walked three times and scored on Ernie Clement’s double in the eighth, which opened an 8-5 lead after the Yankees had crept within two. The collective efforts made the offence look the way it was built to look.
“We've been playing better, definitely,” Kirk said through interpreter Hector Lebron before the game. “It's not that early in the season anymore, so we've got to get it together, make adjustments as a team and try to win series.”
Along with the offence, the rotation needs to keep doing its part for that to happen and Yesavage had another unusual outing, walking six over five innings while leaving the game up 7-3 with two runners on in the sixth.
Trent Grisham’s two-out, two-run single off Mason Fluharty pulled the Yankees within two, but the lefty held the damage there. Still, Yesavage ended up allowing five runs, the third time in four outings he’s given up at least that many, with the other an odd seven-walk, one-run start at Baltimore.
“My outing, not good,” Yesavage said of his third time facing the Yankees, and the first in which he’s allowed runs. “The first four innings, put up zeroes and then third time around the order, struggled, which has been the case the past few outings. But offence showed up, was behind my back and it was great to have Kirky back.”
He was also at a loss to explain the issues with his command, saying “it's just frustrating because it's working on this stuff in between starts and, I don't know. Spraying a little bit just bit me.”
Braydon Fisher escaped a bases-loaded jam in the seventh, Tyler Rogers took care of business in the eighth, and Louis Varland locked things down in the ninth for his 12th save, triggering roars from a crowd of 41,596.
At 34-36, the Blue Jays will need a sustained run to catch the Yankees (41-27) in the American League East, but they’re already within a half-game of the Texas Rangers for the final wild-card spot.
“We feel it, we've got to kind of go,” said Schneider. “Today was a good example of that, getting out to a lead and adding on when we needed to.”
With Kirk joining others back in the fold, and more help on the way, they’re better positioned to pull off the heavy lifting that remains.
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