{"id":30931,"date":"2025-07-23T09:51:20","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T09:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/30931\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T09:51:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T09:51:20","slug":"gausman-has-best-stuff-in-clutch-win-over-yankees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/30931\/","title":{"rendered":"Gausman has best stuff in clutch win over Yankees"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2013 The first two innings have never been Kevin Gausman\u2019s forte but when he gets off to a quick start he knows it\u2019s going to be a good game.<\/p>\n

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Gausman struck out Trent Grisham and two-time American League MVP Aaron Judge in the first two at bats of the Toronto Blue Jays\u2019 4-1 victory over the New York Yankees on Monday night. Gausman struck out eight and gave up just one run over seven innings as Toronto earned a critical win over the rival Yankees.<\/p>\n

That one-two punchout was when Gausman knew he had his best stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately for me, I\u2019m usually not very good at the first two innings. My career ERA would be so much lower if, you know, I could figure that out,\u201d said Gausman, who has a 3.86 earned-run average over his career, although he has a 4.69 ERA in the first inning and a 3.32 ERA in the second over his 13 Major League Baseball seasons.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut when I\u2019m able to come out and establish the fastball and throw swing-and-miss splitters straight out the jump, I feel pretty confident that I can go seven innings or even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gausman fell behind Judge 2-0 in the first inning but then got him out with a swinging strike on a four-seam fastball, a foul ball on another four-seamer followed by another swinging strike on a splitter.<\/p>\n

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The two battled again in the fifth with Oswald Peraza on third base and two outs.<\/p>\n

Gausman jumped out to a quick 0-2 count in that at bat but Judge drew a pair of balls to even it 2-2. Judge fouled off three-consecutive four-seamers that were all over 96 miles per hour, before he popped up an 84.6 m.p.h. splitter to catcher Alejandro Kirk to end the top of the inning.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s kind of mano a mano,\u201d said Gausman of the impressive showing against Judge. \u201cIf he gets a hit, it\u2019s going to score a run, and if I get him out, I\u2019m out of the inning so definitely tried to throw my best fastballs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at my numbers, they\u2019re not too great against him. He\u2019s had a lot of success against me. I\u2019ve struck him out a good bit, but he\u2019s a two-time MVP for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sold-out Rogers Centre crowd of 41,786 seemed to appreciate Gausman\u2019s battles against Judge, with a loud ovation when Kirk caught the pop-fly in foul territory.<\/p>\n

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\u201c(Gausman) was awesome,\u201d said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. \u201cKind of what you expect out of a veteran guy to get the series going.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHuge at bat versus Judge in the fifth. That was a good battle. Came after him with heaters, but Kev, he was in total control. Really, really good performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was Toronto\u2019s (59-41) fourth win in a row and seventh in 10 games. The Blue Jays added to their lead atop the AL East, four games ahead of New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime you can go seven innings, against a division rival is going to be big, especially the first game of a series, rest some of those guys out there (in the bullpen),\u201d said Gausman. \u201cIf you can get a little bit further, it\u2019s going to set things up nice for the rest of the series.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Yankees have two more games at Rogers Centre in the series. Toronto has a Major League Baseball-best 36-16 record at home so far this season and has won a franchise-best 11 consecutive games at Rogers Centre.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the city and the fans deserve that,\u201d said Schneider. \u201cWe love the support. You look up at 6:45 p.m. and the place is full.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really cool feeling and the guys, they feel that. Everyone feels that.\u201d<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 21, 2025.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2013 The first two innings have never been Kevin Gausman\u2019s forte but when he gets off to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[1558,18619,18620,363,99,364],"class_list":["post-30931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-blue-jays","tag-blue-jays-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}