Bronx Bombers light up Blue Jays in opener of big Rogers Centre series
Author of the article:
Rob LongleyPublishing date:
Sep 28, 2021 • 18 minutes ago • 5 minute read • Join the conversation
New York Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres gets Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. out at second base during the sixth inning at Rogers Centre on Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2021. Photo by JOHN E. SOKOLOWSKI /USA TODAY SPORTS Article content It was a game and situation a good two years or more in the making for a Blue Jays team that accepted the lumps of a 95-loss season in 2019 and did so in the belief that the massive tear down would lead to greater things.
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Article contentPlaying the majority of their contests since without a true home, the Jays kept moving forward despite the challenges and arrived at a vibrant, vocal Rogers Centre on Tuesday night for the most important game played here in more than five years.
After a thorough 7-2 destruction at the hands of the New York Yankees, the team’s stubborn resilience will be put to the test yet again, however, starting two more games against their AL East rivals and their season now officially reaching desperation time.
On what had the makings of a memorable night for a team and its long displaced fan base, the Jays missed an opportunity to make up ground on both the Yankees and Boston Red Sox, who were upset by the Orioles in Baltimore.
And instead of the largest crowd to attend a Toronto sporting event in more than two years able to celebrate, their team suffered a butt-kicking defeat to a sometimes despised division opponent.
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Article contentLosers of five of their past eight, the Jays have hit a cold streak at the most inopportune time as the race tightens and the runway to make up ground disappears.
The most explosive noise on the night was not from the 28,679 at the expanded-capacity downtown dome, however, but from a prodigious blast off the bat of Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton.
The 421-foot rocket over the wall in left field was a three-run dagger. The seventh-inning swat was Stanton’s 35th homer of the season and the fourth game in a row that the biggest of the Bronx Bombers hit one out.
The Jays loss left them three games behind the Yankees, proprietors of the top American League wild-card spot with Toronto still one game behind the Red Sox for the second berth.
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Article contentThe way Boston is going â€" losers of four straight â€" there are no must-wins yet.
But with just five games remaining in the season, manager Charlie Montoyo’s team certainly has exhausted its margin for error.
It may end up that the Jays left themselves with too much to do after dropping a pair of games in Minnesota last week as part of a 3-4 road trip, but the opportunity that awaited on Tuesday was palpable.
What a sight it was to have fans in the 500 level as the capacity was expanded to 30,000 for the first time this season, double the previous limits. The Rogers Centre, empty throughout 2020 and until July 30 of this year, was jumping at the prospect of beating the Yankees in the first of a six-game homestand with a shot to extend the season.
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Article contentMontoyo felt it, quietly confident that his team was up for the challenge given the mostly spectacular September it engineered to fight back in the race. And in the Toronto clubhouse, confidence was high after living through that 95-loss season in 2019 then fighting into the expanded playoff pool of last year’s shortened season.
“You dream of playing in these games,†said Cavan Biggio, who was activated from the injury list prior to the game. “Getting called up in (2019) … the team that we were, you could see where it was headed.
“Now that we’re finally here. We’ve put in a lot of work and we’re ready. We’re excited to get out there in play.â€
Dreams on hold, for now anyway.
Heading into Tuesday’s game, there was at least some muted optimism that one of the first big tickets of the rebuild, Hyun-Jin Ryu, could exit the injury list and summon some of the ace-like form expected of him.
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Article contentRyu wasn’t at his best, but credible enough to give his team 4.1 innings and holding the Yanks to three runs on six hits.
“He was never in trouble except fo the first inning,†Montoyo said of Ryu. “He gave up a home run to Judge and that was it.â€
While Ryu was able to limit the damage of the pistol-hot Yankees â€" now winners of seven in a row â€" the power duo of Aaron Judge and Stanton was always lurking at positions three and four in the Yankees order.
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Judge did his part with a solo homer in the third â€" an opposite-field shot that tied the game at 1-1. And then there was the Stanton shot that opened up a fatal four-run lead.
It may be tough to cool the Yankees now. They’ve hit at least one homer in 19 consecutive games and multiple bombs in 11 of those.
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With a Toronto offence that was cooled on Tuesday, it now has to face the raw power of Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, who has one final chance to make his case for an American League Cy Young Award.
The Jays offence, now held to two runs or less in four of its past six games â€" and just three hits on Tuesday â€" will have to find a way to pick that up against the strutting, streaking Yankees.
Held to just three hits on Tuesday, that was never going to be enough to get past the Yankees
Blue Jays take care of business with matinee win over Twins 
SIMMONS: Time already running out on tight Blue Jays 
Big crowds and Bronx Bombers await for Blue Jays biggest home series in five years A tight game of such importance invariably will provide some excruciating moments and the Jays came up on the short end of a pair of them. The first came in the Yankees fifth when a throw home from left fielder Corey Dickerson hit Gio Urshela, allowing the Yankee baserunner to score … With one out in the bottom of the sixth, Bo Bichette tried to take advantage of a passed ball and scoot to third only to get gunned down by Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez in a tight play that survived a Jays challenge. You have to admire the aggressiveness on the bases by Bichette overall, but a play like that in a one-run game with one out can’t happen … The Jays drew the first action in the bottom of the first when shortstop Bichette rapped a two-out single to bring home George Springer, who had led the game off with a walk … The Yankees now have the upper hand in the wildcard race despite having a 34-37 record against the ALL East … Ryu’s velocity was up early in the game, which was an encouraging sign. “The most important thing about today’s game is I had my command,†Ryu said through an interpreter following the game … The Stanton homer came on a pitch that was just 1.26 feet off the ground. “I don’t know how you can hit a ball like that,†Montoyo said. “That ball was almost in the dirt and he went out and hit it out.†…. Since debuting in 2016, Judge’s 22 home runs against the Jays are six more than any other player in the majors.
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