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Like every series the Yankees play against Toronto, I spent three nights and days swearing at the television because the Blue Jays have replaced the Rays as the team I loathe more than any other.

Everything that team does pisses me off to no end, and I just chew glass when I see Vlad Guerrero, Alejandro Kirk, Ernie Clement and George Springer torment the Yankees the way they do. But really, it isn’t just those guys - their entire team drives me batty as I’ve expressed here, and on social media, for years.

There was plenty of tormenting in this series, too, as nothing came easy for the Yankees, but here’s the difference: The Yankees won the series, and not only did they win it, they did it at Rogers Centre, their house of horrors for the last few years. They hadn’t won a series there since September 2023, and before they went north of the border last weekend, they had won just four of their last 16 games in Toronto including only one of nine in 2025 counting the postseason.

“They definitely had our number last year, especially at this park,” Ben Rice said.

It looked like it was going to be another maddening visit when they lost the opener Friday night with all the usual Blue Jays tormentors doing their thing, and they seemed destined for another loss Saturday when they did nothing on offense for the first eight innings. But Paul Goldschmidt’s shocking two-run homer off Blue Jays closer Louie Varland who had been untouchable all season broke a 1-1 tie in the ninth inning, and then a five-run explosion in the ninth Sunday thanks to homers by Rice and Jose Caballero broke a 3-3 tie and clinched the rubber game.

As a result, with the Rays losing a series to the lowly Angels, the Yankees have taken over first place in the AL East in what has been quite a turnaround. On May 22, the Yankees lost the first game of a series against the Rays at Yankee Stadium to fall a season-high 5.5 games behind.

But a rainout the next day seemed to serve the Yankees well, and since winning the second and final game of that abbreviated set on Aaron Judge’s walk-off homer, the Yankees have gone 13-5 and are now a season-high 16 games over .500 while the Rays have gone 7-12. Oh, as an added bonus, by taking two of three from Toronto, the defending division champion Blue Jays are now 10 games behind the Yankees. Beautiful.

“It feels good to shake hands and be celebrating a win in here which was obviously very difficult for us in this building last year,” Aaron Boone said. “It’s a new year, you have to keep going all the time but what a good finish to an outstanding road trip against a couple really good teams.”

Indeed, this had all the makings of a tough week on the road at Cleveland and Toronto, but the Yankees won five of the six games by a cumulative score of 34-23.

I think one of the big differences between this Yankee team and last year’s, is attitude. This group has an edge to it, and no one has more chutzpah than Cam Schlittler. You gotta love this guy. He gleefully shoves back against his fellow New Englanders when they give him shit for being a Yankee, and he came right out the other day and sort of drew a line in the sand with the Blue Jays.

Before he started Saturday, Schlittler was asked about pitching against the Blue Jays, a team that knocked him around in Game 4 of the ALDS last year.

“I know they don’t like us,” Schlittler said. “The fans don’t like us. The fans don’t like me. They’re easy to rage-bait, I think. All the stuff last year in the playoffs or whatever it is - they’ve got a whole country behind them, so there’s a lot. They’re passionate about it. You respect them for that, but I don’t really like them. They ended our season last year. I hope everyone’s got that chip on their shoulder. It’ll be good to go out there and try to be locked in, try to give us a quality start and put us in a position to win games.”

And that’s what he did. Even without his best stuff, he delivered seven solid innings which kept the Yankees in that game and just as he said, gave them a chance to win, which they did, and they followed up with a gritty performance Sunday.

➤ This was a third straight start where Ryan Weathers stunk, and you have to start wondering about his long-term viability in the rotation. Remember, this is an injury-plagued pitcher who is just 20 innings shy of his career-high for a season, and we’re in mid-June. I can’t imagine he’s still in the rotation whenever Max Fried returns, but the way he’s been pitching, I’m not sure he’s gonna help the bullpen.

➤ Home runs are killing Weathers as he gave up a two-run bomb to Kazuma Okamoto in the second and a two-run shot to George Springer in the third which essentially ended the game for the Yankees, putting them in a 5-0 hole. In Weathers’ last three starts he has yielded seven homers and 16 earned runs in 17 innings for an ERA of 8.47.

➤ Alejandro Kirk has been out more than two months, but of course he came back just in time to face the Yankees, who he always kills, and he went 3-for-3 with a walk and two RBI. Springer has sucked all year, but he homered, walked three times and scored three runs. Ernie Clement had two more hits, a run and an RBI. It never ends with this team.

➤ What sucked for the Yankees is that Toronto starter Trey Yesavage was not good but it didn’t end up mattering. They hadn’t scored a run against him in the two games they’ve faced him in his young career, but he walked six men, gave up four hits and allowed five runs, yet still got credit for the win. In the fifth, they got within 5-3 when JC Escarra doubled - the first hit by a Yankee catcher in June - and he scored on a sac fly by Paul Goldschmidt, and Cody Bellinger hit a two-run homer.

➤ We got to enjoy that for all of about five minutes because Weathers walked Springer, Jake Bird took over, and he promptly gave up an RBI double to Vlad Guerrero and an RBI single to Kirk that made it 7-3.

➤ The injury situation worsened as Trent Grisham pulled up lame after hitting a two-run double that got the game to 7-5 in the sixth, but that was it for the Yankees scoring because after leaving the bases loaded in the second, they did it again in the seventh. They were 2-for-10 with RISP and left nine men aboard for yet another maddening night in Toronto. Grisham is now on the IL, meaning more than half of the Opening Day lineup is inactive at the moment. You knew it was only a matter of time before injuries started crippling this team.

➤ Breaking news happened on Saturday afternoon: The Yankees won a game in Toronto. Blue Jays manager John Schneider did them a favor by not playing Kirk in a day game after a night game, and Guerrero sat out this one, and the finale, with back tightness. And the other epic pests, Springer and Clement, combined for just a single and a walk.

➤ Cam Schlittler wasn’t great as he struggled a bit with his command and walked four while also allowing six hits, but the only run he allowed came on a solo homer by Okamoto and he did a great job escaping his own jams as the Blue Jays finished 1-for-10 and left 10 men on base. Andres Gimenez left the bases loaded in the second; Charles McAdoo (on a great play by Chisholm) and Gimenez left men at second and third in the fourth; Caballero and Chisholm turned a big DP in the fifth after Schlittler walked the first two; and Caballero turned a DP in the sixth.

➤ Kevin Gausman was better than Schlittler. He pitched seven innings and the only hit he yielded was Jasson Dominguez’s solo homer in the fourth. However, closer Louie Varland, who has been untouchable all year and dominated the Yankees in the ninth Friday to earn his 12th save, coughed this one up. Bellinger led off with a single and Goldschmidt crushed a two-run homer to left. Varland had allowed just two earned runs all season, and now that total is double.

➤ Before that, this game was in grave danger in the bottom of the eighth. Fernando Cruz, who allowed a run Friday night, walked the first two men, then was given a gift when Clement was asked to bunt and he popped up for the first out. After a strikeout, Cruz walked the bases loaded, but he induced a foul pop out by McAdoo to escape. Given the lead, David Bednar had one of his best outings of the year as he struck out the side on 13 pitches.

➤ Last year Goldschmidt hit just three homers in 366 plate appearances against righties; this year he has four in 100 plate appearances. In his last 35 games since April 26 - two days after Giancarlo Stanton got hurt - Goldschmidt has hit .315 with eight home runs and a .943 OPS. And speaking of Stanton, to the surprise of no one, he had a setback in his return and now he’ll be out longer. I’m just so tired of him.

➤ Dominguez was summoned from Triple-A to replace Grisham at 11:30 Friday night. He got on a 10:50 a.m. flight Saturday, had trouble at the Toronto airport waiting to grab his bats off the luggage carousel, and didn’t get to the ballpark until an hour before first pitch, so that homer was impressive, as was the fact that he played his first MLB game in right field.

➤ Rice singled in the first inning, then had three straight poor at bats, two of which were strikeouts. But with the game on the line in the ninth inning, he crushed a 3-2 slider from Braydon Fisher to right for a two-run homer, scoring Goldschmidt in front of him who had singled for his third hit of the game. And then, Dominguez and Chisholm drew walks and Caballero launched a three-run bomb to left-center to blow it open.

➤ This was the fourth game on the road trip where the Yankees scored the winning runs in the eighth inning or later.

➤ Will Warren had a rough day, lasting just four innings as his pitch count soared to 95 because he couldn’t put batters away. The worst of it was needing 12 pitches to get No. 9 hitter McAdoo out in a 30-pitch fourth which finished him. Luckily, he was bailed out by a couple double plays and he limited the damage to just two runs despite eight hits and three walks allowed. The Yankees were fortunate to survive that outing.

➤ The Yankees had a chance to start big but they left two men on base in the first, and in the second they scored only twice off Patrick Corbin when it looked like he was ready to get blown away. Anthony Volpe started what was a very good game for him at the plate and in the field with an RBI single after a Max Schuemann double, and Ali Sanchez hit an RBI double, but Rice and Dominguez killed the rally.

➤ Thereafter, the bullpen did a great job, the exception being Bird who continues to disappoint. He gave up a tying solo homer to Davis Schneider who was hitting .120 at the time. Otherwise, Tim Hill, Brent Headrick, Camilo Doval and Bednar put up four scoreless innings.

➤ Before the Schneider homer, the Yankees went up 3-2. Chisholm walked, stole second and took third on a grounder, but then got caught in a rundown on the old contact play when Schuemann hit one back to the pitcher. However, Schuemann managed to get to second and he later scored on a Volpe single. After Schneider’s homer, it stayed 3-3 until the explosion in the ninth.

➤With two hits, Sanchez had the first multi-hit game by a Yankee catcher since May 26 when Austin Wells had three hits against the Royals.

After a day off Monday, the Yankees will have an interesting test on their hands as the surprising White Sox come to town for three games. When the schedule came out, no one could have envisioned that the White Sox would be coming to Yankee Stadium in first place in the AL Central, and fresh off a series win over the Dodgers, but here we are.

I wrote about the White Sox the other day in the Day at the Ballpark newsletter and they have been one of the best stories of the season because since a 6-13 start they have won 32 of 51 games. Their 96 home runs rank tied for third in MLB behind only the Yankees and Dodgers.

➤ SS Colson Montgomery: He has an .801 OPS with 17 homers and 40 RBI while playing a slick shortstop.

➤ 3B Miguel Vargas: He has already tied his career-high for home runs with 16 and he leads the team with 44 RBI.

➤ CF Tristan Peters: He played for the Savannah Bananas in 2021 and Saturday night he ended Dodgers’ ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto's no-hit bid. He’s hitting .294 with an OPS of .804.

➤ LF Sam Antonacci: The rookie has a team-best on-base of .379 and his first career MLB homer on June 14 was an inside-the-parker. His second came Sunday and it cleared the fence.

➤ RP Sean Newcomb: Part of a strong White Sox bullpen, he has a 2.16 ERA and a 0.980 WHIP.