Yankees vs. Blue Jays ALDS Game 2 takeaways
Here are three takeaways from the Yankees’ 13-7 loss to the Blue Jays in Game 2 of the ALDS.
1. Sometimes faster isn’t better
Nothing went right for Max Fried in his nightmare of an outing (three innings-plus, charged with seven runs).
In the regular season, Fried was 11-1 with a 1.82 ERA in 16 starts after a Yankees loss. The Yankees won 12 of those games.
But on Sunday, with the Yankees coming off a 10-1 loss in Game 1, one of the many warning signs that Fried didn’t have it was his fastball velocity. It was too high.
Fried averaged 94.8 mph with his fastball this season, according to Baseball Savant. But on Sunday, he was throwing his fastball too hard and didn’t have command of it.
Fried threw six fastballs at 97.5 mph or higher. Three were balls, two were hit for singles and one was topped for a run-scoring groundout.
Fried is known for having seven different pitches with which he can get outs, but it all starts with the fastball. And his fastball was too fast on Sunday.
2. So much for the playoff layoff factor
In the final week of the regular season, as the Blue Jays and Yankees jostled for the AL East crown, Aaron Boone was asked if he was concerned about getting too much time off if the Yankees won the division title and earned a first-round bye.
“I'll take the bye all day long. It's winning a series, essentially, without having to play one," Boone said. "We've seen teams come out of the wild-card situation and run the table. We've seen it the other way. But if you're asking me if I get to choose, I'll take the bye."
Whenever a team gets the bye and then comes out flat after a five-day layoff, great baseball minds try to figure out if the time off is the culprit. It’s good for pitchers to get extra rest after a 162-game season, but it’s supposed to be a potential negative for hitters, who crave routine.
Not so much for the Blue Jays this year. In the first two games, they scored a total of 23 runs and hit .392 (29-for-74) with more home runs (eight) than strikeouts (seven).
3. Broom and gloom in the Bronx on Tuesday?
The Yankees come home for Tuesday’s Game 3 trying to stave off being swept in a postseason series for the seventh time (excluding two one-game wild-card round defeats).
The Yankees were swept out of the postseason in the World Series in 1922, 1963 and 1976 and the ALCS in 1980, 2012 and 2022. All were four-game wipeouts except for the 1980 ALCS, which the Yankees lost to Kansas City in three games (it was a best-of-five series at that time).
In last season’s World Series, the Yankees won Game 4 to avoid getting swept before the Dodgers won Game 5 and the series.
Game 3 starter Carlos Rodon is all that stands between the Yankees and oblivion. He allowed three runs in six innings and got a no-decision with the Yankees facing elimination in a 4-3 win over Boston in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series. This season, Rodon was 0-1 with a 3.60 ERA in two starts against Toronto.
He will be opposed by Shane Bieber, who faced the Yankees twice in the postseason when he was with Cleveland in 2020 and 2022 and went 0-1 with a 6.12 ERA. The Yankees haven’t faced Bieber since 2023 as he missed most of the last two seasons after Tommy John surgery.
Here's a bonus fourth takeaway: Luke Weaver finally got an out in this postseason after allowing all six batters he had faced to reach base. He got the final out of the eighth on one pitch.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
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