Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette hits a three-run home run in the second inning of Tuesday’s win over the Reds in Cincinnati.Kareem Elgazzar/The Associated Press
A month ago, the New York Yankees were finished. They’d gone 14-25 since July 1, and fans had started wearing paper bags on their heads to games. Their manager, Aaron Boone, was reduced to begging his players to be better through the press.
“I wholeheartedly believe we are going to get rolling and turn this thing around,” Boone said. This sounds like what you say to your kid after he fails algebra for the third time.
Sadly, the Yankees players responded. New York hasn’t been great, but in that way it does, it refuses to let its season die. That makes this a good time for the Blue Jays to put a stake in New York’s heart.
The Yankees are the Canadian hockey franchise of Major League Baseball. Their fans care too much, expect too much and react too much. When things are good, they’re never going to lose. When things aren’t, they should all be fired. From a cannon.
The bigheads are a good example. They targeted the manager, Boone. Since being hired, Boone’s led the team to the postseason in six out of seven years. What an idiot.
This is their greatest weakness. The Jays are in a wonderful position to exploit it.
As Toronto heads to New York for a three-game series beginning Friday, the Yankees are feeling pretty good about themselves. They’ve won eight of their last 10 (not including Thursday night’s game against Houston). Aaron Judge is fully recovered from injury and the offence is humming. The pitching staff – a constant concern – is holding it together.
New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge had 43 home runs and 97 RBIs going into Thursday night’s game in Houston.Alex Slitz/Getty Images
The Yankees are in the middle of a gruesome stretch – Houston, Toronto, Detroit, Boston. That’s four of the other five current playoff teams. This is New York’s first round of the playoffs. If it comes out of this anywhere near the lead in the American League East, it will believe it is World Series bound.
If Toronto is a serious contender, now’s the time to put a stop to that.
Taking two out of three games would stunt the Yankees’ momentum. A sweep would make it next to impossible for them to win the division.
Anything else, and you are confirming what the Yankees already believe – that the Jays aren’t for real. In sports, truly believing something is the next best thing to actually doing it.
The difference with the Jays this season isn’t personnel. It’s approach. All of a sudden, the Jays play like a team that expects to win.
Their recent swing through Cincinnati is the case in point. After getting gazumped in the ninth inning of the first game, the 2020/21/22/23/24 Jays would have lay down and died.
They absolutely would not have survived watching an 8-1 lead in the second game get whittled to nothing in the second inning. They’d probably have rolled over in the third game as well. They’d have gone into this series with the Yankees hanging on to the AL East lead with their teeth.
Daulton Varsho and the Toronto Blue Jays took two out of the three games in Cincinnati against the Reds, including rebounding from an early 5-0 deficit on Wednesday to win 13-9.Katie Stratman/Reuters
The 2025 Jays won two ugly ones and now have some breathing space on top of the division. Like the Yankees, the Jays ought to be thinking of this, right now, as their first round of the playoffs.
We think we have a handle on what they’re good at (hitting) and so-so at (pitching), but we know to a certainty what they’re bad at – a three-game wild-card series. Toronto’s played in three of them. It’s never won a game.
Winning the division shouldn’t be the goal. That’s too abstract. Avoiding another potential disaster in the wild card should be. That’s easy for ballplayers to wrap their minds around.
To avoid the wild card, the Jays have to win this series in the Bronx.
Toronto faces the Yankees in New York, followed by the Astros in Houston and then it’s downhill until the end (Baltimore at home, Tampa and Kansas City on the road, Boston and Tampa at home).
If New York and Houston go well, all sorts of good things come from that. Maybe you don’t have to send your bullpen out the minute a starter stumbles in the first four innings. Maybe someone else gets a look in as a potential closer. Maybe Anthony Santander can be organically worked back into the line-up after a long injury absence without completely alienating the no-names who filled in his gaps.
Toronto slugger Anthony Santander has only played in 50 games for the Blue Jays this year in an injury-hit season since signing as a free agent last winter.Mark Blinch/Getty Images
A little urgency is good. You don’t want your team taking a mental holiday for the last month. But panic is bad. You must avoid any glimmer of an idea that maybe they’ve gotten in over their heads. Or that maybe next year is their year.
The other people the Jays have to convince – and no less important – are their own fans. This has been a fun run. The Jays are finally value for money (as long as you’re in the cheap seats).
But no committed Toronto fan actually thinks they’re going to win anything. They’ve been disappointed too often by this team. They’re just hoping to get a bye, win a round and not be embarrassed. Winning is for the New Yorks of the world. New Yorkers accept no less.
If the Jays want to change that story, now’s the moment to do so. A battling series win is fine, but a commanding one would be much better.
The last time the Jays came into the playoffs with momentum was 2015. In early September, they were leading the division, but not by much. They came into New York around this time for a four-game series.
On the Saturday, they played a double-header. Toronto won the first one. There was a long rain delay in the nightcap. By the time play restarted, only a smattering of Yankees fans remained. Toronto won that one as well, and the Yankees were finished for the year. New York made the playoffs, but lost in the wild card. Toronto went on to its deepest, most convincing run since 1993.
Perhaps if history repeats itself this weekend, it will repeat itself again after that.