When Aaron Judge hit one of his typical monster home runs in the seventh inning last night off Tyler Clippard, it extended the Yankees’ lead to two runs against a Toronto offence that was having trouble scratching out support for Aaron Sanchez’ valiant effort on the mound for Toronto.
The Judge homer was one of those “Uh-oh, Toto, we’re not playing Kansas City” moments. Toronto had taken great delight in dismantling the Royals’ bullpen over its last three games, but the idea of going two runs down with six outs to go in the Bronx against the Yankees was a bit too much to contemplate.
Because, you see, even though C.C. Sabathia pitched short in his first start since returning from the disabled list, and the Yankees had used two of their awesome bullpen crew already, they still had David Robertson and Aroldis Chapman in the tank.
To their credit the Jays got to Robertson for a run in the eighth to cut the New York margin to one, but Devon Travis, Steve Pearce and Teoscar Hernanez came up empty against Aroldis Chapman in the ninth, letting more than a little air out of the Toronto balloon under which they had wafted into town from their northern habitat.
The Aaron Sanchez of 2018 is not the Aaron Sanchez of 2016. Yet. Despite his carrying a no-hitter into the eighth innng in his last start against the Orioles, Sanchez is not yet dominant either in the sense of the number of strikeouts he’s racking up—just 2 in six innings last night, and only 4 against Baltimore—or in his command of the strike zone.
His pitch count has been consistently higher so far this year, and there’s been far more of a sense of his labouring on the hill, not to mention fighting with the strike zones being imposed on him.
For example, in the first inning last night he retired Brett Gardner, Didi Gregorius, and Giancarlo Stanton with little fanfare and not much in the way of contact. And his walk of Aaron Judge might strike some as even sensible: if you don’t strike him out, it’s better to give him a pass then give him something to crush. So in a relatively uneventful inning Sanchez threw 22 pitches.
The math is obvious: at that pace he has to pierce 100 pitches to pitch into the sixth inning, with no chance of going to the seventh.
Sanchez’ labours continued in the second, as he racked up another 23 pitches, and gave up two cheap runs on soft-contact hits. Gary Sanchez fell away from an inside pitch and blooped one to right for a single. Neil Walker admittedly hit the ball well off the wall in right, but it was a catchable ball were it not for the positioning of the outfielders. Sanchez scored on a soft bounce-out to Travis at second, and Walker scored on Ronald Torreyes’ broken-bat bleeder to left over the glove of a leaping Aledmys Diaz. Cut out the cheap hits and Walker dies at second. Gotta be frustrating. Not to mention Sanchez was now up to 43 pitches.
Juxtapose the Yanks’ two runs with the fact that wily old C.C. Sabathia cruised through the first two innings on only 29 pitches, just allowing Yanvergis Solarte to reach on a walk leading off the second.
With the Jays facing the possibility of a long night against Sabathia, the two cheap runs looked awfully big, and they were. Toronto never quite caught up even when they did.
Instead of shutting down the Jays after the runs in the seoond, Sabathia started to ravel* in the third. Luke Maile continued his great stroking with a line single over Didi Gregorius that was actually harder hit than any of the 3 Yankee hits in the second. Devon Travis followed with a ground single past Didi, who didn’t know which way to turn.
*Little known fact from yer humble scribe, aka the Word Snob: “ravel” means to come apart; “unravel” is a redundancy.
Travis had fouled a ball off his foot in the at-bat and came up lame, but stayed in the game. This was after being hit on the arm twice in the KC series. Yet more worries for the embattled second sacker.
Steve Pearce was out on a little chopper to third that worked as well as a bunt, moving up the runners. Teoscar Hernandez also grounded out to third right at the bag, so Maile still had to hold at third. It was looking like another lost opportunity for Toronto but Sabathia rather obviously crossed up catcher Gary Sanchez, and the ball went bounding to the backstop, allowing Maile to score and Travis to move to third. Justin Smoak fouled out to Walker at first to end the inning, but the Jays were on the board.
In one of those cruel ironies of scoring the game, the scorer can’t really judge whether a pitcher has crossed up a catcher. The scorer can only go on what the ball actually did, and in this case it was judged a passed ball against Sanchez, though it was Sabathia’s mistake.
Aaron Sanchez settled in much more nicely in the third against the dangerous part of the Yanks’ order, fanning Judge, retiring Gregorius on an easy fly to left, and Stanton on a first-pitch grounder to Diaz at short.
That guy Maile produced another run for Toronto in the top of the fourth, after New York handed the Jays two leadoff baserunners. Solarte reached on a throwing error by the third baseman Torreyes, and then Sabathia plunked Pillar on the foot. The veteran righty almost got out of it, with Diaz skying to centre and Grichuk popping out to short, but that brought Maile to the plate, 2 out and a runner at second. I can hear it now: “That’s the way, the way he likes it.” He snaked a ground single up the middle to score Solarte and the game was tied after Travis flew out to leave Pillar at third.
Sanchie was even more efficient in the Yankee fourth; after 12 pitches in the third he retired the side on only seven pitches the next time out. Nice work if you can get it.
The Jays threatened again in the top of the fifth, when Sabathia’s comeback start came to an early end, and hard-throwing reliever Chad Greene came in to shut the door.
Herein lies the difference between a team like the Royals and a team like the Yankees. Manager Aaron Boone can go to his bullpen with one out in the fifth and get one and two thirds out of a Chad Green. The Royals haven’t got a Chad Green, or anyone even close to him.
Steve Pearce led off with a drive to the alley on which Judge showed his athleticism in the field, cutting off a sure double and holding Pearce at first. But he moved up anyway on yet another passed ball, and after Hernandez grounded out again with Pearce holding, Yost called on Green to turn Justin Smoak around to the left side.
Green did his job. Smoak hit an easy fly ball to centre, and Solarte fanned on a foul tip when Green threw him a heater upstairs.
After the Yankees withstood the Toronto threat in the top of the fifth, they managed to push across the lead run against Sanchez in the bottom of the inning. Once again, like the second inning, New York manufactured a run without any significant input from either Judge or Stanton. Once again, Torreyes, Gardner, and Gregorius were instrumental in the production of the run.
Sanchez walked Torreyes; Gardner pushed him up to second with a ground single to right. Torreyes had to hold up to avoid being hit by the ball,* so couldn’t go to third on the hit. But Judge moved him up to third with a fielder’s choice, which set him up to score on Gregorius’ single through the right side. After Stanton loaded the bases with an infield single, Aaron Sanchez escaped further damage when Gary Sanchez grounded into an unassisted force-out at third.
But you don’t want to be going into even the sixth inning down by a run to the Yankees. Their closers in the bullpen are just too strong.
Green breezed through the sixth with a strikeout and only needed 18 pitches to retire the 5 hitters he faced. In the seventh inning it was Dellin Betances, and any Jays who were hoping for another Betances meltdown were roundly disappointed, as he retired the side on 15 pitches.
Aaron Sanchez was finished after six innings, having given up 3 runs on 7 hits while throwing 99 pitches. Tyler Clippard came in to face his former team, and only faced 4 batters to retire the side. Unfortunately, one of them was Aaron Judge, and more unfortunately Judge unloaded on Clippard with a sold drive to left making the score 4-2.
With the Jays’ deficit 2 runs, and David Robertson and Aroldis Chapman still lurking ahead, the faint hope was getting fainter.
However, Robertson ran into trouble immediately in the eighth inning, and the Jays managed to edge back within a run. A major feature of the little rally was that veteran manager Sleepy John Gibbons pulled a fast one on rookie Yankee manager Aaron Boone.
Hernandez led off the inning with a base hit to left that Gardner hustled to cut off, holding Hernandez to first. Robertson walked Smoak on a 3-1 pitch and Solarte on 4 pitches to load the bases. Aaron Boone, looking ahead to the lefty Granderson hitting for Grichuk, mired in a slump as he was, hurriedly got Chapman, who of course is left-handed, up in the bullpen.
But Gibbie realized that Chapman hadn’t been up long enough to come in right away, so instead of waiting for Grichuk’s spot, he hit Granderson for Diaz, and Boone was stuck with Robertson facing Granderson. Of course, the move paid off because Grandy lofted a bloop single into centre that scored Hernandez and left the bases loaded. There were no heroes’ laurels for Randal Grichuk, however, as Robertson fanned him on a 1-2 pitch, and then survived a sharp drive to left by the now-dangerous Maile to for the third out.
John Axford survived a walk to Aaron Hicks in the bottom of the eighth to hold the lead at 4-3, but Chapman finally came in for the save in the ninth and blew away Travis, Pearce, and Hernandez, without necessarily keeping the ball in the strike zone, striking out the side to preserve New York’s narrow lead and give first blood to the Bronx Bombers in this New York showdown.
If hard didn’t work last night, soft might work tonight as Marco Estrada gets the ball for Toronto against Sonny Gray. Seems like we’ve seen this script before.
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