NEW YORK — In a heavyweight fight for the ages, the Blue Jays couldnâ€t keep their gloves up.
It was all sitting right in front of them, up 6-1 in the top of the third with the Yankee Stadium crowd ready to turn its frustrations from Toronto to their own team. All the Blue Jays needed to do was play Blue Jays baseball, but for the first time this postseason, they left themselves wide open.
Tuesdayâ€s 9-6 loss to extend the ALDS to a Game 4 Wednesday night in New York was a loss of Torontoâ€s own making. Sure, Aaron Judge delivered a playoff moment they might be replaying for years in New York with a three-run shot off the foul pole in left field, but the Blue Jays just kept inviting the Yankees to land the big blow. Their lapses in defense were the stunner in all of this.
“We just didn’t play our game,†said manager John Schneider. “When you look at things as a whole, just defensively, giving [the Yankees] extra outs, they can do that in a hurry. It’s not one thing, it’s a couple of things.â€
It started early. Minutes after Vladimir Guerrero Jr.â€s third home run in as many ALDS games got the Blue Jays out to a dream start, Isiah Kiner-Falefa bobbled a ground ball that extended the inning long enough for Giancarlo Stanton to drive in the Yankees†first run. The most obvious error came just prior to Judgeâ€s home run, though, when Addison Barger tracked a high pop fly from Austin Wells back into shallow left field, drifting towards the foul line. Barger just kept drifting until … clank.
“It was pretty swirly out there up top,†Barger said. “When it got to its highest point, I felt like I was in position to make the play, and just started tailing towards the stands a little bit, which is kind of weird for a left-handed fly ball. Usually they come back towards the line.â€
Instead of having the bases empty with two outs, the inning kept rolling and two batters later, Judge was trotting up the first-base line, pointing down at the dirt of the stadium heâ€d just reclaimed from Guerrero.
“The game changed. The whole series changed right there,†said Jazz Chisholm Jr., who later hit the go-ahead home run.
Itâ€s difficult to even fault Louis Varland, who gave up the big blow. He threw Judge a 100 mph fastball up, in and well off the plate. Itâ€s the first time in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008), regular season or postseason combined, that a hitter has homered off a 99-plus mph pitch that also was that far inside.
“He made a really good pitch look really bad,†Varland said.
It doesnâ€t stop there, either. An inning after a grounder skipped past the outstretched glove of Guerrero to score the Yankees†eighth run, Anthony Santander dove and whiffed on a looping liner from Cody Bellinger, allowing it to skip past him and set up the eventual ninth run. Drip, drip, drip.
This wasnâ€t the Blue Jays team weâ€ve seen all season, at least what played out from the third inning on. Shane Bieber didnâ€t give the Blue Jays the start they needed, either, in a moment that couldnâ€t have lined up better for their big Trade Deadline addition. None of these are fatal flaws, but in the postseason, thereâ€s so little time for adjustments and almost no room for the “small sample size†arguments.
The Blue Jays won the Team Gold Glove in 2023 and 2024, and they have been one of the best defensive clubs in baseball this season. Alejandro Kirk, Andrés Giménez and Daulton Varsho might be the best up-the-middle trio in the league, and across the roster, the Blue Jays are rock solid. The strangest things can happen in the postseason, though, especially with all the hate and passion of Yankee Stadium raining down on you.
“If you let your foot off the gas for even a second, a good team will pounce on you and make stuff happen,†said Ernie Clement, who went 4-for-4. “We know they’re not going to give up. Theyâ€re not going to lay down. So we got to show up and be ready to play tomorrow.â€
Weâ€ve seen the Blue Jays at their best, scoring a postseason-record 23 runs through Games 1 and 2. Now, weâ€ve seen something a hundred miles from it. This isnâ€t going to get any easier, either, with Cam Schlittler waiting Wednesday and Toronto toying with a bullpen day after running that same bullpen hard in the Game 3 loss. Just as the Blue Jays†wins seemed to snowball on the Yankees, that can turn quickly.
The Blue Jays have played 165 games this season. Tuesday night was an outlier — as poorly timed as it can get — and they need to make sure it stays that way.
Discover more from 6up.net
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.