Injury-Plagued Yankees Win Contentious Series in Toronto

That was quite an unexpected series win for the Yankees, taking three of four from the Blue Jays despite their continued, never-ending problems with injuries. And yeah, as you’ll read, beating the Jays is absolutely wonderful.

You are all very aware of how much I hate the Rays; I make no secret of it with every reference I make to that team in these pages. But I wrote last month in the newsletter that the team we should really loathe more than any other is the Blue Jays. And you saw why in this contentious series.

Toronto is the No. 1 rival right now, and here’s the thing: It’s not just fans, it’s certainly not USA vs. Canada baloney, it’s that the two organizations clearly don’t like each other and that’s what makes the best rivalries. It’s one thing to have fans screaming back and forth at each other either in person or via social media; it’s another when the players and coaches get into the spirit of things.

You’ve hopefully been keeping pace every Wednesday with Hardball Hyperbole and that was the very definition of what a fierce rivalry looks like. The Yankees and Red Sox of that era did not like each other and you saw it almost every time they played in 2003 and 2004.

I’m not saying the Yankees-Blue Jays has risen to that level of combativeness; it’s nowhere close, but it’s on track. You’ve got Alek Manoah calling Gerrit Cole the “biggest cheater in baseball” and Vlad Guerrero Jr. saying he would “never sign with the Yankees; even dead.” And while I haven’t heard or read about any Yankees taking pot shots at the Blue Jays, that’s probably a function of the Yankees being a more buttoned up organization. For all we know, they’re chirping nonstop in private.

Even the managers, who are supposed to be the voices of reason, are getting into it with all the nonsense that went on in the first two games. The Jays essentially accused the Yankees of cheating when they spotted Aaron Judge peeking down the first-base line just before reliever Jay Jackson was delivering pitches Monday. Remember, all teams use PitchCom so there are no signs to steal.

Turned out, after the game Jackson and Jays manager John Schneider admitted that the pitcher was tipping his pitches, so good on first base coach Travis Chapman who apparently figured out when Jackson was throwing a slider he was slower to get to the set position than he was when throwing a fastball. That’s been going on since baseball began 150 years ago. Sure enough right after he peeked and apparently got the pitch type, Judge launched it for a mammoth 462-foot home run.

Of course, Judge lied about this when he was asked. Obviously he didn’t want to reveal the Yankees secret, so he said he was looking over at the dugout because his teammates were distracting him with their berating of the home plate ump who had just ejected Boone for arguing about his shitty strike zone. That explanation never made any sense and the Jays saw right through that.

Then came the whole debate Tuesday about where the base coaches should be standing on the field which was nothing more than gamesmanship by the Blue Jays. Their pitching coach, Pete Walker, pointed out that the Yankees weren’t within the confines of the coaching box, as if that was why they figured out Jackson’s routine.

“What’s fair is fair and if our guys are giving stuff away, we have to be better at that,” Schneider said. “If things are being picked up from people that aren’t in places they should be, that’s where I think the line should be drawn.”

Of course, the Jays coaches were out of the box just as much and Boone repeatedly told the home plate umpire about it. Even after winning Tuesday, Boone was in a foul mood, mainly because of the Domingo German fiasco, and yet another injury to a pitcher - more on that down below - but also because of the coaches box thing. Boone said at the end of his presser, “It’s just silliness, ridiculous and I think everyone, I hope, on both sides, realizes that.”

Oh, and did Schneider call someone on the Yankees a “fat boy?” Yes, hitting coach Brad Wilkerson was the target. What a crazy series, made even better that the Yankees won three of the games.

Now, the Yankees won’t see these guys until September. I won’t miss them.

“I feel like we’ve been playing a lot of chaotic games lately,” Isiah Kiner-Falefa said. “The AL East is a different animal. It’s fun. It’s what you want when you’re playing baseball. Our guys are able to stick together and find ways to pull it out.”

Here are my observations on the four games against the Blue Jays.

May 15: Yankees 7, Blue Jays 4

➤ I was never fan of the opener strategy and the Yankees hadn’t used it since 2021, but the nerds made a good call this time by having reliever Jimmy Cordero start against the Jays, then come with Jhony Brito for the bulk of the work. Cordero retired all six men he faced, though he needed two great plays by Anthony Volpe and Jake Bauers. Then Brito pitched five scoreless innings allowing just three hits before running into trouble in the eighth.

➤ The offense kept rolling as it jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first on a solo homer by Judge and a two-run shot by Willie Calhoun. And then the Yankees tacked on until it was 7-0, the last of those runs Judge’s 462-foot homer to dead center. Anthony Rizzo had an RBI double in there, Kyle Higashioka had an RBI single and Judge drew a bases-loaded walk, with much of the damage against the cocky but struggling Manoah. He began the game with a 1.93 ERA in seven career starts against the Yankees, but he gave up five runs on six hits and a career-high seven walks. He’s having a shit season. Good.

➤ Pretty funny how it was the Jays broadcast team that raised the issue of whether Judge was cheating by maybe looking to see where the catcher was set up. Those guys are the only thing I like about the Jays - both Dan Shulman and Buck Martinez are excellent. But they should have known better than to think Judge was doing that. Hell, the way his eyes, seeing the catcher was impossible.

➤ The eighth inning got a little hairy for the Yankees. Up 7-0, Brito started to lose it and of course Boone was too slow to react. He gave up three hits and got hurt by a Gleyber Torres error. Ian Hamilton came in and while no runs were charged to him, he allowed two inherited runners to score which, yeah, not good on him. All three of those runs were unearned because of the Torres miscue. Thankfully, Michael King was able to end the four-run rally by getting Daulton Varsho, and then King pitched a 1-2-3 ninth

BOX SCORE

May 16: Yankees 6, Blue Jays 3

➤ German has been the second-best starting pitcher on the team for most of the season. And now, perhaps we know why - he’s cheating. He was already under suspicion when he was found to have too much sticky stuff on his hands in a start against the Twins, but he was allowed to continue in that game which really pissed off Twins manager Rocco Baldelli. So you would think he’d be more careful, especially since this was the same umpiring crew working this series. But no, he wasn’t. The ump said he’s never felt stickier hands in these inspections and that it definitely was not rosin, which is legal. So not only did German get kicked out of this game, he gets an automatic 10-game suspension and the Yankees can’t replace him on the roster, so now they’re down a pitcher.

➤ Oh, make that two pitchers because Hamilton replaced German and perhaps because he had to rush his preparation to pitch, he hurt his groin and had to come out. He’s now on the IL and the Yankees had to call up Nick Ramirez. So, German’s stupidness might be partially responsible for yet another blow to a pitching staff that can’t afford any. German is already on a very short leash with Yankee fans because of his domestic abuse incident a couple years ago, for which he got suspended. Now this. I don’t know how much the sticky stuff has helped him this year, but the analytics people said his spin rates really weren’t any different on his pitches in this game, so the sticky stuff couldn’t have been helping too much. Anyway, this is a very good time for Luis Severino to get back on the damn field, which is supposed to happen Sunday in Cincinnati.

➤ As for the game, overshadowed as it was by the coaches box nonsense and German, this was a damn good win. The bullpen had to cover 18 outs and they did it, though Ron Marinaccio had another nightmare outing. He had two outs and nobody on in the fifth and in the blink of an eye he gave up three runs on four hits which tied the score at 3-3. Boone had to hook him, and the surprise of the night was Ryan Weber shut down the Jays for 2.1 innings before Clay Holmes and Wandy Peralta handled the final two innings.

➤ While Weber was out there, Judge put the Yankees up 5-3 with another moonshot homer to center off Erik Swanson and the Yankees manufactured an insurance run in the ninth.

➤ Torres has been a disaster in the field lately. He nearly cost the Yankees a double play when he once again bobbled the transfer at second. The Yankees challenged the safe call and it was overturned. And then he made an awful decision in the eighth when, rather than taking a sure out at first, he threw to second and the runner was called safe. That could have really bitten the Yankees, but Holmes pitched out of the jam.

➤ How about Kiner-Falefa being a sparkplug? He hit a solo homer off Kevin Gausman that made it 3-0, and in the ninth he doubled and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly. He had two extra base hits all season before matching that in this game.

BOX SCORE

May 17: Blue Jays 3, Yankees 0

➤ The offensive resurgence that has been driving the Yankees better play of late came to an abrupt halt, and because of that, they wasted a nice start from Gerrit Cole. He pitched into the seventh without allowing a run, but so did Toronto’s Chris Bassitt who was even better. The Jays had traffic against Cole while the Yankees had three meaningless singles against Bassitt, and then nothing except four walks against the Jays bullpen.

➤ What the hell with Danny Jansen, who hit the walk-off three-run homer against Wandy Peralta? The guy is hitting .188 this season, he’s a career .220 hitter with 52 home runs and an OPS of .721. Against the Yankees? In 38 games he has nine homers, and he’s batting .282 with an OPS of .961. I swear, the strangest damn guys seem to kill the Yankees.

➤ Volpe’s error was certainly ill-timed, and his fielding has been a little suspect lately. Between him and Torres in the middle, that’s been a problem. Maybe Bader can come in and help because that guy catches everything. He had another great diving catch in this one.

➤ No Fatty Guerrero in this game. He hurt his knee Tuesday but he was able to return Thursday as a pinch-hitter.

➤ Holmes did a great job getting Cole out of a jam in the seventh. The first two guys singled so Boone made the move and Holmes went 1-2-3. Holmes getting on track would be huge, especially now with Hamilton out. Same for Cordero who pitched into and out of trouble in the eighth. They’re going to need him to step up and in this series, he did.

BOX SCORE

May 18: Yankees 4, Blue Jays 2

➤ Holy smokes, how the Yankees won this game with the pitchers they had to use in high leverage spots was pretty remarkable. First of all, after giving up the first-inning bomb to Bo Bichette, Nestor Cortes looked like the Nasty Nestor we love. Just two runs on five hits and a walk was much better than his recent outings. Hopefully, he figured something out.

➤ But when he walked Whit Merrifield to start the seventh, oh boy, you had to feel that trouble was about to start exploding. Weber, who looks about as intimidating as a high school science teacher, was first and he immediately gave up a single and a walk to load the bases with no outs. But then he got Brandon Belt on a short fly and that brought Guerrero off the bench to pinch hit. I basically gave Weber a zero percent chance of surviving that at bat, and technically, I was right - he allowed a run. But it came on a sac fly, so the Yankees gladly traded a run for an out which was fine given the other possibilities. And then he got George Springer, another royal pain in the ass, to line out. I couldn’t believe the Yankees were still leading.

➤ And then Albert Abreu mowed through Bichette, Matt Chapman and Varsho on 16 pitches, and Marinaccio, who has been in a rut, locked it down with an easy seven-pitch 1-2-3 ninth.

➤ What a series for Judge as he hit his fourth long home run, a two-run bomb in the first. And how about Aaron Hicks with a three-hit night including a big RBI single in the seventh. And Volpe’s homer in the ninth gave Marinaccio just a little more cushion. He didn’t need it, but we sure did!

➤ Of course, what’s a day without an injury. Trevino had to go on the IL with a hamstring so the Yankees called up Ben Rortvedt who came over from the Twins in that horrible trade that also brought IKF and Josh Donaldson to New York. Rortvedt has fit right into the organization because he’s been hurt almost the whole time he’s been here. Now Higgy is the No. 1 catcher.

BOX SCORE

➤ May 18, 1999: Joe Torre delivered a message to his Yankees on this night at Fenway Park. “I’m back, and I’m back to stay.”

Torre had missed a little more than two months as he underwent treatment for prostate cancer, but in proclaiming himself fit and ready to go, the 58-year-old Torre said, “This is what I do, and it feels great. I found out that this is still something I wanted to do. I missed being in the dugout. I missed being around the players. Watching on TV was great, but you don’t get the feel for them unless you’re in the dugout.”

Don Zimmer had served as the interim manager, and the Yankees had been scuffling in recent weeks and that didn’t change despite Torre’s return as they dropped a 6-5 decision to the Red Sox which knocked them out of first place in the AL East.

On most nights, losing to the Red Sox was just about the worse thing for the Yankees. Not this night because this was all about Torre, looking and feeling good and taking back the reins which Zimmer was all too happy to relinquish. “You bet I am,” Zimmer said. “I’m tickled he’s back, especially since he wouldn’t be back if he wasn’t healthy.”

The Yankees would spend the next three weeks trailing the Red Sox, but they passed them on June 9 and never looked back, winning the division and ultimately, their third World Series in four years.

Next up for the Yankees will be three games in Cincinnati against the 19-24 Reds who are tied for third in weak NL Central, but are also just 1.5 games away from last place. They just dropped two of the three to Rockies who are certainly as mediocre as it gets.

The Reds haven’t had Joey Votto all year, and they have hit just 34 home runs as a team which is fourth-fewest in MLB. However, they can be pesky at the plate as their .248 team average ranks 15th and their team on-base percentage is even better, ranked 12th at .325 which is better than the Yankees’ .312.

Where the Reds lag is starting pitching. Their rotation has a 6.21 ERA which is second-worst in baseball ahead of only the A’s. Hunter Greene could be on his way to stardom with his 102 mph fastball, but he’s 0-3 with a 4.60 ERA and 1.581 WHIP. Another promising starter, Nick Lodolo, is currently on the injured list and will be for quite a while, a real blow for them.

The pitching matchups aren’t all set but here’s what we know: Friday night, 6:40 on YES, it’s Clarke Schmidt (6.30 ERA) against Ben Lively (1.69) who will be making his first MLB start since 2018 when he was with the Phillies. He has spent the last three years playing in Korea. Saturday on YES at 4:10, the Yankees are undecided, though it might be Brito, while the Reds will throw Luke Weaver (6.26). And Sunday, the game is on the Peacock network and it starts at 11:35 a.m.. This is supposed to be the season debut of Severino and he’ll go against Greene.