{"id":204162,"date":"2025-09-06T05:14:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T05:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/204162\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T05:14:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T05:14:12","slug":"blue-jays-execute-game-plan-to-perfection-in-clinical-win-over-yankees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/204162\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays execute game plan to perfection in clinical win over Yankees"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 For all the talk about this being the biggest series of the season, the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> did nothing different under the bright lights at Yankee Stadium on Friday night.<\/p>\n

The stakes were relatively high, and the ballpark was packed and buzzing right from the start, but none of that seemed to matter to the visiting side. Kevin Gausman<\/a> authored a dominant performance and the Blue Jays\u2019 lineup remained true to who they\u2019ve been all season while executing a clinical 7-1 win over the New York Yankees<\/a> in front of 46,055.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s our brand of baseball,\u201d said Toronto manager John Schneider. \u201cThat was all around a pretty Blue Jay-ish win.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the victory, the Blue Jays improved to 82-59 and increased their lead to four games over the Yankees, creating further separation from an American League East rival whom they already hold a tiebreaker over.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays wasted no time in jumping on Yankees rookie phenom Cam Schlittler. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.<\/a> was booed as he walked to plate before his at-bat in the first inning and quickly shushed the crowd by ripping a first-pitch single to left field.<\/p>\n

Up next was an excellent at-bat from Bo Bichette<\/a>, who went down 0-2 before fouling off three pitches \u2014 including two 99-m.p.h. fastballs \u2014 from Schlittler and eventually working the count to 2-2. Finally, Bichette broke his bat on the eighth pitch of the plate appearance but managed to lift the ball into left for a double that scored Guerrero Jr.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays proceeded to load the bases and Nathan Lukes followed with a single to right that plated two more runs. It was a play that exhibited the Blue Jays\u2019 penchant for executing on the margins to take advantage of their opponents\u2019 weakness.<\/p>\n

Aaron Judge fielded Lukes\u2019s drive and Daulton Varsho, running from second base, forced him to make a throw home. However, the Yankees\u2019 slugger, playing in his first game in right field since the end of July due to a right elbow issue, didn\u2019t meet that challenge and instead tossed the ball softly to the cutoff man, allowing Varsho to easily score.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it’s his first game back in the outfield and there was a little bit of unknown,\u201d said Schneider. \u201cBut we wanted to test it and I think [third base coach] Carlos [Febles] did a good job of sending him there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays continued to apply a Vise-Grip in the second, loading the bases before Bichette\u2019s sacrifice fly added another run. The lineup wore down Schlittler, fouling off a remarkable 24 pitches, 15 of which came with two strikes, while making him throw 66 pitches over his 1.2 innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s what we’ve done all year,\u201d Gausman said. \u201cHonestly, we just grind starters out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Schneider: \u201cJust really, really relentless up and down the lineup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guerrero Jr. padded the Blue Jays\u2019 lead with a solo homer off left-hander Ryan Yarbrough in the fifth inning. It was his 16th career homer at Yankee Stadium, the most he\u2019s hit in any opposing ballpark, as he collected four hits on the night.<\/p>\n

Schneider noted the first baseman seems to have a little more pep in his step when playing in the Bronx, but Guerrero Jr. played down his success.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompete, like I always do,\u201d Guerrero Jr. said through interpreter Hector Lebron. \u201cIt’s the same. I’m not doing anything different here. It’s just trusting myself, continue to work hard and things are coming up good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guerrero Jr. and Co. provided more than enough support for Gausman, who was about as good as he\u2019s been all season. The right-hander relied on his trademark fastball-splitter combo while mixing in an effective slider to suffocate the Yankees\u2019 lineup.<\/p>\n

Gausman said he\u2019s altered his mechanics with the pitch and has been trying to \u201cstay close to my ear\u201d with it, \u201calmost like throwing a dart.\u201d That has, in turn, impacted the slider\u2019s shape and velocity.<\/p>\n

The right-hander allowed just one run on four hits over eight innings, walking one and striking out five. He tossed 105 pitches and said that\u2019s a benchmark for him and the rest of the rotation down the stretch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is we have to go 100 pitches,\u201d said Gausman. \u201cEspecially this last month, we’ve taxed our bullpen enough. Now we need to step up as starters and get to that 100-pitch mark consistently. With the guys that we have, we can do that. We feel pretty confident we can give at least one, maybe two [relievers] off a night doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gausman has produced a 2.48 ERA over his past six starts but says he\u2019s not fully content with where he\u2019s at.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve definitely taken a step in being more consistent and that’s really what I wanted to fix, but there’s another level to that,\u201d he said. \u201cI know what I can be when I’m at my best. Tonight is a glimpse of that but I still feel like I’m not necessarily completely back to feeling great with everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the Blue Jays will take a Gausman performance like Friday night\u2019s any time he steps on the mound. He set the tone nicely for the rotation during this important series and, on that front, Schneider revealed that the club swapped its starters for the weekend, with Chris Bassitt now set to pitch on Saturday and Max Scherzer moved to Sunday. That was done to get Scherzer, who\u2019s been dealing with upper back tightness that crept up on him in his last start, an extra day of rest.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Anthony Santander is with the club in New York and is continuing to ramp up in his recovery from a left shoulder ailment. If he continues to progress, the switch-hitting outfielder could begin a rehab assignment with the triple-A Buffalo Bisons on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s potentially good news for the Blue Jays, who with Friday\u2019s win took another step toward cementing a division crown.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s our dream,\u201d said Guerrero Jr. \u201cEverybody in there is on the same page. There are still 21 games left and still a lot to do. We gotta keep going out there and competing and playing hard the rest of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 For all the talk about this being the biggest series of the season, the Toronto…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":204163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-204162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115155649629861707","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}