The Blue Jays Are The Team We Should be Hating Most

For the first time this season the Yankees lost a series as they dropped two of three to the Jays, who I believe are currently their biggest rival. The offense was nowhere to be found, and as I said before the series started, you can’t convince me that the Yankees are a better team than the Jays.

The Red Sox have some work to do if they want to get back to their rightful place as the Yankees’ fiercest rival because right now, the Blue Jays have emerged as that team.

The first meeting of the season proved that these teams don’t really like each other which today in baseball is kind of rare. Now, it hasn’t risen to the level of 2003 and 2004 with the Red Sox - which you’ll be reading about all year in Hardball Hyperbole each Wednesday. But there is definitely some fire with Toronto, which is why it sucked so much that the Yankees’ first series loss of 2023 was to these guys.

Vlad Guerrero Jr. - who is rapidly rising on my ever-growing shit list of opponents that I loathe because of the way he tortures the Yankees - hit two more home runs in this series after he had struck a match to this rivalry in the offseason. He was asked whether he would like to play for the Yankees after he becomes a free agent in 2026 and he said he would “never sign with the Yankees; not even dead.”

On top of that asshole remark, there was his little chest-puffing show Friday night when Greg Weissert hit him on the elbow in the top of the eighth, clearly unintentional. The diva stared Weissert down and had a few words as he peeled off the 20 pounds of protective gear he wears, so Anthony Rizzo came down the line and defended Weissert. When he was asked about that Rizzo said he told Vlad, “‘Just walk to first base.’ I just took exception to that; wanted to back my teammate. Staring him down like that, it was obviously an accident.”

And then there’s pitcher Alek Manoah who is also on my list of guys I wish abject failure upon. Last August Manoah hit Aaron Judge with a pitch that seemed to be on purpose and Judge, who normally is poised, was clearly pissed and said something. That led to the Yankees coming off the bench and Manoah barking back at them, particularly Gerrit Cole who Manoah clearly has an issue with. He essentially challenged Cole to come a little further toward the mound if he wanted a piece of him.

During an offseason appearance on a podcast, Manoah called Cole the “worst cheater in baseball.” He elaborated that Cole’s reliance on sticky substances before the ban had helped him become a great pitcher. “He cheated. He used a lot of sticky stuff to make his pitches better. He kind of got called out on it.”

Fast forward to Saturday. With Cole already on the mound ready to start the game, Manoah and catcher Alejandro Kirk purposely strolled out of the bullpen way late and slowly made their way to the dugout, delaying the start of the game. It was a bush move clearly intended to piss off Cole who had to wait for Manoah’s fat ass to get off the field.

Of course, the Jays also have former Astro George Springer who routinely killed them when he was in Houston and that hasn’t changed since he came to Toronto. And the Jays signed a former Ray who I can’t stand, Kevin Kiermaier, who I think is one of the biggest hot dogs in the game, a guy who never saw a fly ball that he couldn’t turn into a diving, look-at-me play.

You all know how real my hatred is for the Rays; I make it pretty clear in every newsletter. But let me tell you, the Jays are making a serious bid to take the lead while the Red Sox languish third in my rival ratings.

➤ The Yankees offense was pathetic in this series. Besides the out of nowhere end-of-game burst Saturday, it was painful to watch. In the three games they scored five runs on 18 hits. They have now played 22 games and in only two did they produce double digits in hits, while in 11 games they had seven hits or fewer.

➤ Saturday, DJ LeMahieu became the first Yankee with a walk-off pinch hit with the bases loaded since Dale Berra on April 10, 1986 against the Royals. That’s kind of amazing.

➤ Ron Marinaccio’s ERA is 0.93 over 9.2 innings and he has held opponents to a .067 batting average.

➤ Judge went 0-for-4 and finished the series 1-for-12. He has really hit the skids as his average is down to .244 thanks to a 3-for-25 slump. Not counting the first week of any season since his 2017 debut, his average hasn’t been this low since he was hitting .242 on April 14, 2017. If he’s not producing, this team has little chance to succeed.

➤ Guerrero now has 12 homes runs in 34 career games at Yankee Stadium and he’s hitting .297 with a .959 OPS in the Bronx. Pure evil.

➤ Harrison Bader started his rehab assignment at Double-A Somerset Friday and ripped a double and drove in a run in three at bats while playing five innings in center field. He seems close to a return, but Aaron Boone says he’s not ready to get back in the lineup and it could be a couple weeks more. And Josh Donaldson had a setback with his hamstring and now he’s probably weeks away from a return which, as I’ve said all along, is fine with me.

➤ Did you notice the other day that the Diamondbacks released pitcher Madison Bumgarner, a three-time World Series winner, one-time World Series MVP, and four-time All-Star? They dumped him because he’s absolutely horrible now, so they decided that addition by subtraction was the right move and they’re going to eat $34 million in salary over the next two years.

Hello, Yankees, richest team in baseball. You owe Aaron Hicks almost $30 million for the next two-plus years, so how about practicing the same addition by subtraction strategy and dump this guy. Hicks - who has a zero resume compared to Bumgarner - is beyond useless at this point and he can’t even get playing time ahead of Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Willie Calhoun and Franchy Cordero. When Bader returns, DFAing Hicks is the only logical move the Yankees should make.

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

April 21: Blue Jays 6, Yankees 1

➤ In what would become a trend, it was just a lifeless night at the plate. Three batters into this game, if you happened to be watching on Apple TV (and I know a lot of you probably weren’t) you could have turned it off and gone about the rest of your evening. Guerrero hit a two-run homer off Domingo German and that’s all the Blue Jays needed. The only run the Yankees scored came on Oswaldo Cabrera’s solo homer in the second. Otherwise, they had four measly hits and had a runner reach second base just once. Just a pathetic performance against Jays starter Yusei Kikuchi who has a 4.96 career ERA, and three relievers.

➤ Since 2018, there are 115 pitchers who have thrown at least 400 innings and only four have a higher HR per nine innings rate than German’s 1.65. The one to Guerrero is excusable because as I said earlier, he has made it his mission to destroy the Yankees. The second, with a two-run bomb with two outs in the sixth to Brandon Belt, was ridiculous.

➤ Belt is now 35, and his World Series days with the Giants are long behind him. He signed with the Jays in the offseason, but coming into the game his slash line was .154/.233/.231 with an OPS of .463. In other words, he’s nearly as bad as Hicks. In his first 11 games with the Jays, he had no homers and one RBI, but he took German deep, and then in the eighth he ripped a two-run double off Albert Abreu, a ball that Judge should have caught at the wall but dropped. Four RBI for that guy was about the last thing I would have predicted in this game.

BOX SCORE

April 22: Yankees 3, Blue Jays 2

➤ The Blue Jays deserved to lose this game. Manoah was dominant for seven innings as he gave up no runs on two harmless hits. The Yankees had almost no chance against him, yet with his pitch count at just 85, manager John Schneider took him out. I couldn’t believe it, and I’m sure the Yankees were thrilled. “He always wants to stay in,” Schneider said. “Part of it was the way it lined up with the bullpen and part of it was having him have a good outing under his belt in New York and get rolling a little bit (he had been struggling coming into the game). It was tough. Whenever it doesn’t work out, you say, ‘shit.’ You second-guess it. But we were turning the ball over to guys we really trust.”

➤ Here’s how that worked out for the Jays. Yimi Garcia got the first two men out in the eighth but then Peraza singled and Anthony Volpe broke up the scoreless game with a two-run homer to right. And then in the bottom of the ninth, after the Blue Jays had tied the game in stunning fashion, Schneider went to normally reliable closer Jordan Romano who promptly gave up a double to Rizzo, an infield single to Gleyber Torres, a walk to Willie Calhoun, and a walk-off RBI single to LeMahieu who was pinch-hitting. That was fun to watch.

➤ Cole wasn’t at his best, yet he still pitched 5.2 innings of scoreless ball, giving up just four hits and two walks with four strikeouts. He gave the Yankees a chance in a game where their offense was again utterly feeble until the sudden outburst at the end. He was in trouble right away in the first as the Jays had men on second and third, but he whiffed Matt Chapman and Daulton Varsho. In the second he worked around a leadoff double and a hit by pitch by getting Springer to ground out. Those were two big moments in the game.

➤ As soon as Wandy Peralta walked Kirk to start the ninth, I knew it was trouble, and four pitches later, Danny Jansen, who was hitting .114 on the season, took Peralta deep for a tying two-run homer. After all it took for the Yankees to score, they pissed away the lead almost immediately, but at least they fought back from that punch to the gut and found a way to win.

➤ I thought Boone’s bullpen decisions were good. He used Marinaccio in the sixth, went to Clay Holmes in the seventh against the top of the Jays order, and then with two outs in the eighth, he made the right call to go with Peralta against lefty-swinging Varsho with a man on second and he got him to ground out. Even going to Jimmy Cordero with one out in the ninth after Toronto tied it worked out as he got Springer to hit into a double play. That one I was a little concerned about, but Cordero got the job done.

BOX SCORE

April 23: Blue Jays 5, Yankees 1

➤ I had plans on Sunday and missed this one. Glad I did. I was following along on my phone and then watched the highlights and, yeah, I sure didn’t miss much.

➤ What a shame this offense was so horrendous because Clarke Schmidt finally pitched well, striking out a career-high eight. He retired the first 13 men he faced, then worked into and out of trouble in the fifth. But in the sixth, Volpe’s first error of the season on a routine grounder by Springer changed the entire game. Schmidt retired Bo Bichette for what should have been the third out, and then Fatty Vladdy jacked a two-run shot and Varsho followed with a solo homer. That proved to be way more than enough for Toronto. Too bad for Schmidt, this was an undeserved loss. Let’s just hope he found something that he can use moving forward.

➤ Michael King gave up back-to-back doubles for the fourth run, the second of those by Jansen which drove home Whit Merrifield. Jansen is flat out one of the worst hitters in baseball. His career average is .220, but against the Yankees, he’s hitting .284 with eight homers, 21 RBI and an OPS of .959 in 35 games. What? How is that possible?

➤ Rizzo is becoming the king of meaningless late-game home runs in losses as he hit another in the ninth to break Toronto’s shutout. I’d give Jays starter Kevin Gausman some credit as he whiffed 11 in his seven shutout innings, but for Christ’s sake, look at this lousy lineup he faced?

BOX SCORE

 ➤ April 24, 1987: Rickey Henderson is known as baseball’s all-time steals leader, and on this day he recorded one of the 1,406 stolen bases he accumulated during his remarkable 25-year career. But that wasn’t the headline in this game which the Yankees lost 6-5 to the Indians at Cleveland Stadium.

Henderson hit a pair of home runs, one off his former Yankee teammate, 48-year-old Phil Niekro, and the other off 42-year-old Steve Carlton, two men who he would later take up residence with in the Hall of Fame. This was the first and only time in MLB history where a player hit home runs off two 300-win pitchers in the same game.

Niekro, in the final year of his 24-year career, started for the Indians and knuckle-balled his way through seven strong innings and had a 4-1 lead, but when Henderson led off the eighth with a solo home run, Cleveland manager Pat Corrales brought in Carlton, who was in the second-to-last year of his 24-year career.

Carlton quickly walked Gary Ward and gave up an RBI triple to Don Mattingly, and then in the ninth, with two outs, Wayne Tolleson singled and Henderson homered to give the Yankees a 5-4 lead. However, in the bottom of the ninth. Dave Righetti blew the save and the game as the Indians scored two runs, the winner coming on an RBI single by Cory Snyder.

The loss ended a 10-game Yankees winning streak and prevented what would have been the best start to a Yankee season in their history as their record fell to 13-4. “Some game, huh?” said Carlton, who happily took an undeserved victory, one of 329 for him, while Niekro lost out on one and soon saw his career end at 318 wins instead of 319.

The Yankees are 13-9 and tied for third place with the Jays, now six eye-opening games behind the Rays.

➤ Tampa Bay 19-3: Ho hum, another series sweep against the latest creampuff on their schedule, the 7-15 White Sox who have played horribly this season. The Rays lead MLB in batting average, on-base, slugging, OPS, runs scored and home runs. On the pitching side they lead MLB in ERA, WHIP and batting average against. They have literally been unstoppable and this week, for the first time in recent memory, I think we should all be rooting for the deplorable Astros because they’re going to Tampa for three games.

➤ Baltimore 14-7: The Orioles scored only nine runs but they still swept three from the feeble 7-13 Tigers, winning two in walk-off fashion. Sunday, they tied the game at 1-1 in the eighth, then won in the 10th on a wild pitch. Ryan Mountcastle has six homers and 20 RBI and Baltimore’s bullpen ranks fourth in MLB with a 3.12 ERA and is No. 1 with a 3.38 strikeout to walk ratio. They next host the Red Sox for three.

➤ Toronto 13-9: The Jays got three great outings from their starters and the Yankees just had no answers. The crazy thing was Chapman came into the series sizzling hot yet the Yankees held him to two harmless hits and no RBI. Guerrero further fueled the fire for Yankee fans with his overly demonstrative trip around the bases Sunday. “Of course you listen to that,” Guerrero said of the boos. “But they’re not going to take that home run away from me. I’ll just run the bases and enjoy it.” Just brutal losing to this team. They host the lousy White Sox next.

➤ Boston 12-11: This was an awful weekend for the Yankees in that their division opponents went a combined 10-2. The Red Sox went to Milwaukee and took two of three from the NL Central leaders. Sunday they were down 4-3 in the eighth and scored nine runs as Justin Turner led off with a home run and then Masataka Yoshida followed with a solo shot and later in the inning hit a grand slam. Every team in the division has a winning record, and every team has a higher OPS than the Yankees’ below league average .706.

The Yankees open a week-long road trip that will take them to Minnesota (12-10) for three and Texas (14-7) for four, two teams that are leading their respective divisions. Again, I keep harping on this, but the first month of the schedule the Yankees are playing is vastly more difficult than what the Rays have dealt with, and it has allowed Tampa to build a sizable early lead in the division.

When things eventually even out, the Yankees are going to have to be as dominant against the shitty teams as the Rays have been or you can forget winning the AL East and they’ll be relegated to the wild-card hunt.

The Twins found a way to lose the first two games of their series with the lousy Nationals before winning 3-1 Sunday. In their 10-4 loss Saturday, newly-signed pitcher Pablo Lopez got lit up by a Washington team whose best overall hitter is, well, I don’t even know. That’s how bad that team is.

Oh, guess who is back in the Twins lineup? None other than Joey Gallo. He sat out the series in the Bronx but now he’s healthy and he’s actually been somewhat useful with five homers and 11 RBI. They will also have second baseman Jorge Polanco as he just made his season debut over the weekend. It’s going to be another tough series, especially if the Yankees keep hitting like they are.

The scheduled pitching matchups: Monday, 7:40 p.m. on YES, Jhony Brito vs. Sonny Gray, the ex-Yankee with a 0.82 ERA who they avoided in the series at Yankee Stadium last week. Tuesday at 7:40 on YES, it’s Nestor Cortes vs. Joe Ryan (3.24 ERA). And Wednesday at 1:10 on YES, it’s German vs. Kenta Maeda.