The Blue Jays Pummel the Yankees To Take ALDS Game 1

At this time last year, the Blue Jays faced some serious uncertainty. They’d just finished last in the AL East, and they had only one more season guaranteed with both Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette on their roster. The future became even murkier during the winter, when the Yankees and Red Sox were both beefing up, the Orioles were still expected to be good, and the Rays were, well, the Rays. Both Guerrero and Bichette became the subject of trade rumors; really, there were questions about whether or not Toronto would just blow it all up.

Oh, how things have changed. In early April, the Jays extended Vladito through the end of the next decade, and then they caught fire. And now, one year after coming in last, they finished tied with the Yankees for the best record in the American League and took the division because they won the season series between the two teams. For that reason, Toronto hosted Game 1 of the Division Series against the New York on Saturday, and after the Jays bludgeoned the Yankees, 10-1, maybe it’s the boys from the Bronx who should be feeling a bit of self doubt.

As a franchise, the Yankees have played 441 postseason games; this loss ranks as one of their worst playoff humiliations ever:

Saturday was the Yankees’ worst playoff loss since their 16-1 shellacking at the hands of the Red Sox in 2018. For those who have forgotten that game, or at least have tried to forget it, that was the one where the Sox tagged Luis Severino early and Brock Holt (!!!) hit for the first cycle in postseason history.

Against the Blue Jays, the Yankees started reigning AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil, who was left off the Wild Card Series roster after starting the final game of the regular season, when the Yankees were still in pursuit of the first-round bye that Toronto barely secured. In his two postseason starts last year, Gil didn’t make it to the fifth inning; on Saturday, he couldn’t make it a full three frames.

The Jays pounced quickly in the first, with Gil throwing a middle-inside changeup that fooled Guerrero about as effectively as a toddler trying to hide by covering their head with a blanket. That’s not a location where pitchers will typically throw offspeed stuff to Vlad, and after the way he unleashed his bat speed on this one, they won’t be rethinking their approach for him anytime soon.

The day didn’t go much better for Gil after the Guerrero homer. Alejandro Kirk led off the second inning with a solo shot of his own, smacking a 95-mph fastball into the crowd with the second-fastest bat speed on any ball in play of the night, at 84.7 mph.

The Yankees were still only down 2-0 at this point, but the Blue Jays were hitting Gil hard. Six of their batted balls against him registered an exit velocity of at least 95 mph. Recognizing that his starter didn’t have it, manager Aaron Boone went to left-handed sidearmer Tim Hill to face the lefty-heavy part of the Toronto lineup with a runner on first and two outs in the third.

Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman fared much better than Gil. He attacked the zone early and got a lot of quick outs as a result. Six of the nine batters in New York’s lineup were lefties, but Gausman’s profile limits the effectiveness of playing for platoon advantages against him: He’s long had a legitimate reverse platoon split as a result of his filthy splitter, which he uses aggressively in any count. He didn’t rack up a ton of strikeouts, but the splitter did its job, getting 10 whiffs on 17 swings. Fortune did the rest of the job for him; of the four balls hit with an exit velocity north 100 mph, he only gave up the two singles.

However, Gausman’s command failed him in the sixth, providing the Yankees with their only real scoring opportunity. Anthony Volpe doubled to start things off, and after an Austin Wells single, they had runners on the corners, nobody out, and the top of their order coming up. Trent Grisham, who’d swung at and got out on the first pitch from Gausman in his first two at-bats, decided it was maybe a good idea to take a pitch. Three of them actually, all for balls. Behind 3-0, Gausman found the zone for strike one, then got Grisham to foul off a center-cut fastball for strike two, before walking him. Bases loaded. Nobody out. Aaron Judge at the plate. Gausman hunkered down, and with the count full, got Judge to flail at a sinker tumbling low and outside the zone.

That matchup seemed to have taken a lot out of Gausman, because he walked the next batter, Cody Bellinger, on four pitches to bring in the Yankees’ only run of the game. After Ben Rice popped out to third base for the second out, Blue Jays manager John Schneider called on Louis Varland to face Giancarlo Stanton, striking him out with a 100.7-mph fastball to escape the jam.

For a good stretch of the middle innings, it looked like the game was settling into a low-scoring affair. Hill and then Camilo Doval combined to allow only one hit in 3 1/3 innings in relief of Gil. The problem was the entire Yankees bullpen struggled to miss bats; over 6 1/3 innings of work, their relievers combined for just one strikeout. The Jays were largely successful all afternoon at putting the ball in play, and when you can do that consistently, it’s only so long until the BABIP gods smile upon you. That’s precisely what happened in the seventh.

Boone brought in Luke Weaver. His last time out, in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series against the Red Sox, Weaver faced three batters without recording an out in an inning that got away from the Yankees. And in Game 1 of the ALDS against the Blue Jays, Weaver faced three batters without recording an out in an inning that got away from the Yankees. After issuing a leadoff walk to Daulton Varsho, Weaver allowed back-to-back singles to Anthony Santander — whom I totally forgot existed — and Andrés Giménez to make it a 3-1 game. Next in from the bullpen was Fernando Cruz, and after a failed sacrifice bunt attempt by Ernie Clement, George Springer walked and Nathan Lukes doubled home two more runs. Guerrero then lifted a sac fly for the fifth run of the inning. At that point, it was Paul Blackburn mopup time.

The Jays finished the Yankees off in the eighth with two more doubles, three more singles, and Kirk hitting his second homer of the game. All that was left was for Jeff Hoffman to close out the rout in the ninth.

It’s hard to find a silver lining in a 10-1 loss in the playoffs, and the best I can manage is noting that by the ZiPS projections, this was the only projected game in which the Blue Jays were favored, by a slight margin. Having this happen with Max Fried or Carlos Rodón on the mound would have been a bit more damaging for the Yankees, and while the bullpen got a workout, New York didn’t have to use either David Bednar or Devin Williams.

Game 1 of the ALDS could not possibly have gone better for the Blue Jays. With their ace on the mound at home against New York’s no. 4 starter, it was a game they had to win. On Sunday, with Fried getting the ball opposite rookie Trey Yesavage in Game 2 of the best-of-five series, the Yankees will be the ones facing a must-win situation.