TORONTO — The lesson took 3 hours and 41 minutes this time, a little longer than usual, but by the end of the night the moral of the story is the same: When you have the opportunity to take out the Yankees, you’d better seize that chance. You’d better pounce. Because if you let them hang around long enough …
Well, what was it that CC Sabathia had said a night earlier?
“All you have to do is make sure you get back in the dugout as quick as you can, because these guys are going to score some runs for you eventually.”
It took 13 innings this time, and it took the Yankees having to wade through six Blue Jays pitchers who did what no team has yet done to them this year, which is to keep them off the board for nine innings. And then a 10th. And an 11th. And a 12th.
If you are the Blue Jays, if you are most major league teams in 2018, you are playing with fire, playing those odds. And so into the game in the top of the 13th inning trotted Joe Biagini, a 28-year-old with a 7.50 ERA. He retired Gleyber Torres. He allowed a single to Brett Gardner.
And here came Aaron Judge.
Judge has been scuffling. He had that horrid day Monday in Detroit, 0-for-9 for the day-night doubleheader and eight strikeouts, which was only the most times one man had ever fanned that many times in one day going back at least 100 years, which is when they started to pay attention to things like that.
The slump was 0-for-15 now.
Biagini tried to sneak a curveball by him on a 1-and-2 count. That isn’t a terrible idea but it was a terrible pitch, hanging invitingly and seeming to stop on an invisible tee midair. It’s the kind of pitch a guy in an 0-for-15 sink hole prays to see. And one that a guy with the gifts Aaron Judge possesses knows what to do with.
By the time it settled in the seats, it was 2-0, Yankees. Two batters later Giancarlo Stanton smoked a bookend solo shot to make it 3-0. It ended 3-0. It ended with the Yankees winning their 40th game in 58 tries.
The Red Sox won, of course, because that is clearly going to be the rhythm of the summer: Yankees win, Red Sox win. Yankees win a bunch, Red Sox win a bunch. You can already tell they are a couple of terrific racehorses measuring each other stride for stride, the both of them built for the long season, eyeing each other across out-of-town scoreboards during these stretches of schedule when they’re separated.
But they are both more than just good ballclubs, they possess the same remarkable resilience. It’s hard to get 27 outs off the Red Sox and walk off the field with more runs than them. And it’s hard to do that against the Yankees, too. In this case, the Jays got 37 outs without allowing a run.
It was the 38th out that was the problem.
Because if you don’t get the Yankees by then, they’re going to figure out a way. If you don’t take advantage of whatever opportunities they give you, they’re going to haunt you and they’re going to burn you.
In this case, the Jays had one and only one opportunity to make a dent in a glorious night by Sonny Gray: fifth inning, first-and-third, none out. Kevin Pillar grounded to third and rather than wait for Miguel Andujar to commit to an around-the-horn double play, Justin Smoak broke for home. He was out by 6 feet. Two batters later, Gray induced a 4-6-3 double play from Devon Travis, and that was that.
That was the Jays’ shot. Most nights against these Yankees, that’s about as many as you’re going to get. You let them pass, you let them hang in there against you, eventually they’re going to find a way. Eventually there’s going to be hell to pay.