The pitching matchup favored the Yankees. With all due respect to one in every of baseball’s finest younger arms, Toronto’s Trey Yesavage got here into the competition having thrown simply 14 huge league innings. Conversely, New York starter Max Fried is a three-time All-Star who completed the season 19-5 with a 2.86 ERA. Whereas Yesavage has a vibrant future — he’s at present the Blue Jays’ high prospect — his mound opponent appeared a greater guess to carry out underneath the pressure-packed lights of the postseason.
That didn’t occur. Yesavage, who started the 12 months in Low-A and didn’t make his main league debut till September 15, not solely saved the Yankees off the scoreboard, however he did so in spectacular trend. As for Fried — ditto his teammates who adopted him on the bump — it was a veritable horror present. He acquired rocked. When all was mentioned and carried out, Toronto had bombarded the Bronx Bombers to the tune of a 13-7 rout that wasn’t as shut as the ultimate rating instructed. The win gave the Blue Jays a 2-0 lead within the best-of-five Division Sequence.
That Canada’s workforce launched 4 dwelling runs and took a 12-0 lead earlier than the Yankees recorded their first hit — a sixth-inning single after Yesavage had left to an enormous ovation — isn’t precisely a footnote to what transpired at Rogers Centre. It was a powerful onslaught. Even so, what the 22-year-old right-hander with the ability arsenal did was the story of the day.
His dominance was on show from the get-go.
Yesavage fanned Trent Grisham to start the sport. Then, after strolling Aaron Decide on 4 pitches, he principally went into rinse-and-repeat mode within the Okay division. By way of 4 frames, the Twentieth-overall decide in final 12 months’s draft had fanned 10 of the 13 batters he’d confronted. The choices he undressed hitters with have been threefold. Per Baseball Savant, Yesavage threw 35 four-seamers, 29 splitters, and 14 sliders. The Yankees have been powerless to sq. up the pitches that left his hand. Yesavage’s ultimate line included 11 strikeouts and only one baserunner allowed over 5 1/3 frames.
The Toronto relievers didn’t discover issues fairly really easy — removed from it, really — however extra on that in a second.
The Blue Jays batters started squaring up baseballs within the second inning. After Fried escaped a first-inning jam by inducing a double play, he surrendered the sport’s first gopher within the second. Decide’s misplay on a Daulton Varsho double into the appropriate area nook put a runner on third to start out the inning, however the bobble was shortly rendered irrelevant. Ernie Clement adopted with a house run to present the AL East champions a 2-0 lead.
From there it acquired ugly for Fried & Co. An Alejandro Kirk chopper to first with one out and runners on corners made it 3-0 within the third, and that was instantly adopted by run-scoring knocks from Varsho, his second double of the sport, and Clement. Then got here the fourth inning, which left the Yankees shellshocked and the Toronto trustworthy in rapture. The oft-struggling New York bullpen took the brunt of the abuse. After an infield single and a stroll, Fried was lifted for Will Warren, who walked George Springer to load the bases and struck out Davis Schneider on the lookout for the primary out. That’s when issues acquired really out of hand. In stepped Yankee killer Vladimir Guerrero Jr. With the depend 2-1, Warren threw Guerrero a belt-high inside fastball. Vladito turned on it and completely demolished it 415 toes into the second deck in left-center area for a grand slam. Kirk singled on a grounder by way of the appropriate aspect, and Varsho clobbered a two-run shot for his third extra-base hit of the sport. In a rush, there have been 11 runs on the board.
The Blue Jays weren’t carried out. Springer went yard within the fifth, and after Cody Bellinger put the Yankees on the board with a two-run shot off of Justin Bruihl within the high of the sixth, Varsho performed lengthy ball once more the underside half. At 13-2, Toronto’s lead was nothing in need of snug.
Till it wasn’t.
Unwilling to go quietly, the Yankees made a variety of loud contact within the seventh. Chewing by way of three Blue Jays relievers, New York plated 5 runs, making issues a minimum of briefly uncomfortable for John Schneider’s membership. At 13-7, the Yankees have been down however not essentially out.
Not lengthy thereafter, although, they have been carried out. Louis Varland tossed a scoreless eighth, and Seranthony Domínguez matched that zero within the ninth. Toronto’s total bullpen effort wasn’t fairly — 10 hits and 7 runs allowed in 3 2/3 innings — however the cushion the offense had supplied was sufficient. The Blue Jays bats boomed all through, belying the issue of going through a starter of Fried’s caliber in an essential sport.
The fresh-faced teen that fully shut down a power-packed Yankees lineup? He was traditionally dominant. Per Sportsnet Canada, Yesavage turned the primary pitcher in main league historical past with 11 strikeouts whereas permitting no hits by way of the primary 5 innings of a playoff sport. His efforts put the Yankees, who entered this sequence having received 13 of their final 15 video games, on the point of elimination.
After a journey day on Monday, Recreation 3 of the ALDS is on faucet for Tuesday night time within the Bronx, the place the Yankees will look to repeat what they did in 2017, the final time they fell behind 2-0 in a best-of-five sequence. That 12 months, they misplaced the primary two video games on the street towards Cleveland, who like these Blue Jays had received essentially the most video games within the American League. New York received two video games to even the sequence and flip the momentum earlier than successful the decisive Recreation 5 again on the street. To come back all the way in which again this time, the Yankees will first want Carlos Rodón to silence the scorching scorching Toronto lineup, they usually’ll additionally want to attain some runs towards Blue Jays starter Shane Bieber.
After all, that was additionally the Yankees’ plan once they arrived at Rogers Centre on Sunday, earlier than they realized they have been no match for Trey Yesavage.