BOSTON — Max Scherzer was chopping it up in the Toronto Blue Jays dugout last weekend, as per usual, when Trey Yesavage’s between-outings work came up. Coming off a six-walk performance against the New York Yankees and having walked seven two starts prior at Baltimore, the rookie right-hander needed a patch and was talking through some ideas.
“It was kind of funny,” Scherzer recalled. “Trey was on the bench and I was like, ‘Don't you ever think this is going to end. It never ends. You're always going to be making adjustments, you're always going to be tinkering. Here I am in Year 19, I've got something I'm comparing from 10 years ago to what I should be doing now. Always keep your mind sharp about what you see and what you've got to make adjustments to.’”
Against the Boston Red Sox on Thursday afternoon, with the Blue Jays' relief corps in dire straits after a seven-man bullpen game the previous night, Yesavage did precisely that in pitching into the eighth inning for the first time. That’s where his gem of an outing was marred a tick after game-tying, back-to-back homers by Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Caleb Durbin to open the frame, but Brandon Valenzuela’s two-out double in the top of the ninth off Aroldis Chapman saved the day in a 4-3 victory that completed a three-game sweep.
At 37-38, they’re back within a game of .500 as they head to Chicago for a three-game set against the Cubs (39-36).
“We played hard,” Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who opened the scoring in the first with a solo that ended a 24-game home-run drought, said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “The mindset that we have as a team, that's what we all talk about in the clubhouse, trying to win every game and going out there and competing. And I'm very happy we swept the Red Sox.”
The Blue Jays narrowly missed a chance to extend their 3-1 lead in the top of the eighth inning, as George Springer was thrown out at home trying to score on Yohendrick Pinango’s double, ending that rally. After Guerrero Jr.’s fourth homer made it 1-0, Andres Gimenez added a sacrifice fly in the second and Nathan Lukes went deep in the seventh to further pad the advantage, but with the team’s top leverage arms down after pitching on consecutive days, more runs could have taken some heat off the staff.
Nonetheless, Ernie Clement’s infield single opened the ninth off Chapman and he came around when Valenzuela — two pitches after the wind whipped his foul popper beyond the reach of catcher Connot Wong — banged a 100.1 m.p.h. sinker off the monster.
Mason Fluharty then closed things out in the ninth for his second career save, becoming the fifth member of the bullpen to collect a save this season.
“I thought that was going foul back into the fans,” Valenzuela said of the fateful popper that kept him alive. “When I turned and I saw Wong following the ball, I was surprised and I saw the ball drop. I was like, OK, I guess the wind is blowing. It helped.”
Helping Yesavage was taking the mound with a renewed emphasis on attacking the strike zone and a slight mechanical tweak in his posture over the rubber, as he logged a career-best 7.1 innings, allowing three runs on four hits while striking out six with no walks.
While he lamented two fastballs that led to the two homers in the eighth, wishing they were a tick more away, he still pushed himself to an eighth up after grinding through his past three outings.
“I'm the same pitcher,” he said. “But it was just the confidence level, knowing my stuff plays and throw it in the zone and let them hit it.”
Eliminating the walks was a priority for the 22-year-old, who’d been frustrated by the way he’d been spraying the ball in recent outings.
To that end, pitching coach Pete Walker said they’d emphasized “getting back to attacking the zone, not being fine with his pitches, not trying to hit corners.”
“That's not his game,” Walker continued. “We were looking at his best games last year, our setup was kind of middle and let his fastball play, his slider play and his split play. I think we've gotten a little bit away from that and started trying to be a little finer up and down, down and away. He has to get his focus back to just attacking the zone with his stuff.”
Helping him get there was a physical adjustment to keep him from opening up and “getting on his pitches a little too early.”
“He has an unusual delivery,” explained Walker. “But it's really just his upper body posture, how he's coming down the slope. If he tends to lean back and open up too soon, it just makes it a little tougher for him to repeat. When he stays over with his chest over just a little bit more and gets down the slope farther, it just makes everything that much easier with his timing.”
Against the Red Sox, it all added up to what Valenzuela described as “our best Trey Yesavage and we rolled with it.”
The Blue Jays very much did, earning their first sweep at Fenway Park since August 2023 while improving to 10-6 in their last 16 road games after a 6-14 start away from the dome.
Manager John Schneider said he really liked “the way we did it, with a little bit of everything between pitching, defence, offence and base-running. I thought we played pretty complete baseball these three games.”
The trick, as always, is to keep it going, something made much easier by a back-in-form Yesavage.
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