The Toronto Blue Jays took flight Wednesday night, ousting the New York Yankees from the playoffs and claiming their first post-season series victory in almost a decade.
They quieted the crowd at Yankee Stadium with a 5-2 win in Game 4 of the American League Division Series (ALDS) that came courtesy of timely hits and a game pitched almost entirely by members of the bullpen.
The Jays got off to an early 1-0 lead in the first inning thanks to an RBI single from Vladimir Guerrero Jr., driving in George Springer who had a leadoff double. New York’s Ryan McMahon hit a solo homer to tie the game in the third.
But Toronto gradually built their lead to 5-1 — a big two-run hit from Toronto’s Nathan Lukes came in the seventh, and Myles Straw had an RBI in the eighth. The Yankees managed to score just one more run in the bottom of the ninth to make it 5-2.
Blue Jays defeat Yankees to advance to ALCS
Speaking to the media after the win, Guerrero Jr. was already giving Jays fans across Canada a glimpse at what he hopes is still to come.
“Maybe some people don’t believe in the team through the year,” he said through a translator. “But I always remind everyone that we have an entire country behind us that believe in us, and hopefully we can get the World Series back to Canada.”
The Jays did not have a regular starter available for Game 4, leaving manager John Schneider to build a pitching plan around his bullpen, which he also used heavily in Tuesday’s Game 3.
While speaking to reporters ahead of Game 4, Schneider likened his pitching strategy to “a chess game.” He chose hard-throwing Louis Varland as the first of eight Blue Jays pitchers to take the mound in the game.
The unconventional arrangement panned out for the Jays, as they allowed just two runs.
While Yankees starter Cam Schlittler was relatively solid in his six-plus innings, the Jays managed to get eight hits off the New York rookie.
“I think the baseball world, as a whole, looked at, you know, a bullpen game versus Cam [Schlittler] as kind of a no contest,” Schneider said after the game.
“And we view it as an opportunity to do what we’re good at.”
After the game, Guerrero Jr. said the ALDS victory “means a lot” to him and marked a difference from earlier Toronto playoff runs he was a part of that ended far more abruptly.
“The difference was, we won games,” he said.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone acknowledged the disappointment he and his team felt, but he also saluted Toronto’s victory.
“We got beat here,” he told reporters after the game. “Credit to the Blue Jays and the year they’ve had and they beat us … simple as that.”
Both the Yankees and the Blue Jays finished the regular season with the same number of wins, but Toronto took the division title because it won more of its regular season games against New York.
The Blue Jays last made it to the ALCS in 2016, where they were defeated by Cleveland, a team that went on to lose the World Series to the Chicago Cubs.
They’re American — and rooting for the Jays
The Jays were last at the World Series when they won back-to-back championships in 1992 and 1993.
Prior to this series, the Jays had not played the Yankees in the post-season before.
Early Blue Jays playoff runs in the ’80s and ’90s occurred at a time when only one team per division made the post-season. Because the Yankees played in the same division, the two teams were never on a path to play one another at that time.
And in more recent post-season matchups, the Jays didn’t draw the Yankees as an opponent.
