{"id":191604,"date":"2025-10-05T13:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T13:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/191604\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T13:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T13:22:11","slug":"blue-jays-overpower-yankees-to-open-alds-with-statement-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/191604\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays overpower Yankees to open ALDS with statement win"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 Once the initial shock of the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> leaving both Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt off their American League Division Series roster wore off, their pitching strategy for the best-of-five versus the New York Yankees<\/a> became apparent. Play it straight in Games 1 and 3 with Kevin Gausman<\/a> and Shane Bieber. Take all rookie Trey Yesavage has to offer in Game 2 and then lean on the bullpen, as needed. If the series gets there, wing it during a Game 4 in which last week\u2019s Louis Varland\/Eric Lauer-led bullpen day may well be the model, with Gausman ready for a potential Game 5. Finally, use the four lefties in a 10-man bullpen to try and neutralize the left-handed hitters around Aaron Judge, in particular, and Giancarlo Stanton, with a variety of different looks while retaining the option to take the bat from the hands of the MVP right-fielder and his slugging counterpart.<\/p>\n

Based on their options, the approach makes sense, although even manager John Schneider acknowledged a need for flexibility heading into Saturday\u2019s opener when he said,\u00a0\u201cyou\u2019ve got to let the game kind of talk to you a little bit.\u201d A couple hours later, there the game was just yelling at him, as Gausman, dominant through five on a mere 50 pitches and nursing a 2-0 lead, suddenly hit a wall in the sixth, loading the bases with none out for Judge, who was coming up for the third time with strong career numbers against the right-hander.<\/p>\n

Forced into his first in-game stress test, Schneider stuck with Gausman, who struck out Judge for the first out before a bases-loaded walk to Cody Bellinger cut the Blue Jays’ lead in half. Up came Ben Rice and again Schneider stuck with Gausman, who induced a pop-up for the second out. Only then did Schneider finally go to the bullpen for Louis Varland, who blew away Stanton to end the inning.<\/p>\n

That nervy sequence set the stage for a four-run seventh that sealed what finished as a 10-1 romp over the Yankees, the Blue Jays\u2019 first playoff win since Oct. 18, 2016. And it also may have been an indicator of how the Blue Jays intend to operate in this series.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can have all the plans in the world and you’ve got to just react \u2014 the game can just turn on you,\u201d Schneider said afterwards. \u201cBeing in that situation a few times, you try to just take all the information you have, right? With the lefties coming behind (Judge), Belli’s reverse splits, where Gausy’s stuff was at that point with his velo, that’s a huge, huge strikeout obviously to who is going to be the MVP of the league, probably. And you’re kind of feeding off the emotion a little bit too, to be honest with you.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn’t feel great, honestly. With Judge coming up, bases loaded, nobody out, that’s not what you want to see. But Kev made big pitches, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

He very much did, which is why in between a hot start, with Vladimir Guerrero Jr.<\/a> in the first inning and Alejandro Kirk on the first pitch of the second each hitting their first ever post-season homers, and the decisive outburst in the seventh, when Andres Gimenez\u2019s RBI single, Nathan Lukes\u2019 two-run double and Guerrero\u2019s sacrifice fly opened up a 6-1 edge, Schneider was rewarded for allowing his ace to bend, trusting that he would not break.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"WatchWatch Blue Jays in ALDS on Sportsnet<\/p>\n

The Toronto Blue Jays will try to build off a dominating Game 1 win Sunday against the Yankees, with Game 2 of the ALDS at Rogers Centre. Catch the action on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+, starting at 4 p.m. ET \/ 1 p.m. PT.<\/p>\n

Broadcast schedule<\/a><\/p>\n

At the same time, the manager also didn\u2019t hesitate when there was a chance to definitively snuff a potential game-changing rally by opting for Varland versus Stanton in the fateful sixth.<\/p>\n

Limiting the damage there ended up changing the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that moment, you’re like, all right, it’s me versus you, I’m going to give it everything I got,\u201d Gausman said of the faceoff with Judge. \u201cTo be honest, I’m fine walking him. He can blow that game right open with one swing. Knowing that, the whole at-bat I was trying to go down and away with the split, left a couple kind of too good, but that (last one) was a good pitch. I thought the pitch before definitely set it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

All that early tension starkly contrasted\u00a0\u00a0the celebratory end, as the Blue Jays followed up that four-run seventh with four more runs in the eighth on Kirk\u2019s second homer of the game, a Gimenez RBI double, an Ernie Clement sacrifice fly and a Lukes RBI single, further electrifying a fervent\u00a0crowd of 44,655 that chanted \u201cYankees suck,\u201d as the runs piled up.<\/p>\n

Between erasing the post-season losing streak, Guerrero delivering his first major moments on the post-season stage, the quashing of any rest-versus-rust talk and forcing the Yankees to burn through five relievers behind starter Luis Gil, the Blue Jays pretty much checked every box on any reasonable wish list.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re set up well now for Sunday\u2019s Game 2, when Yesavage goes against Max Fried. (4:08 p.m. ET\/ 1:08 p.m. PT on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+).<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery season there’s a different feel and a different vibe and I’ve said it before, there’s a different feel with this team,\u201d said Schneider. \u201cIt’s one game. There’s a lot of series ahead of us. But it’s nice. I feel a lot of fulfillment for the guys in there that have grinded and put in a lot of work and had some good years and not so great finishes to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s nice to get the first one out of the way. You got another tough task (Sunday). For me and for the staff and for the guys that have been here, it feels good to move in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move is a long time coming, as the Blue Jays suffered through three two-game sweeps during post-season appearances in 2020, 2022 and 2023 before finally breaking through Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say the difference is this time around, everybody’s ready,\u201d said\u00a0Guerrero, speaking through interpreter Hector Lebron.\u00a0\u201cEverybody’s ready for the game. It doesn’t matter if you’re starting the game, if you’re coming off the bench, everybody knows what they have to do and then whenever they get the chance, they come up ready and do the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

That readiness extends down into covering the continued absence of Bo Bichette, who as expected wasn\u2019t on the ALDS roster since he\u2019s yet to begin running or hitting velocity. Until he starts either there\u2019s no real timeline for his return and at this point, all he can do is work toward the ALCS, should the Blue Jays get there.<\/p>\n

Coping without him, \u201cfeeds into who we are as a team,\u201d said Springer, who walked and scored in the seventh. \u201cIt’s next man up. Unfortunately for us, he’s been such an integral part of this team this whole year. Without Bo we probably wouldn’t be in this position. To know that he’s hurting on the inside, he wants to play just as bad as everybody here wants him to play is tough. I hope in the next few weeks he’ll be able to contribute.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays are doing their best to give him that chance, executing their plan to get the first of the three wins they need to keep going.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Once the initial shock of the Toronto Blue Jays leaving both Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-191604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}