Yankees rally to beat Blue Jays in ALDS Game 3, keep playoff run alive
It was, at last, a postseason game that was all about Aaron Judge.
In ways that were all positive.
And if the Yankees end up winning this American League Division Series, it will be a game their fans won’t let him forget long after his career in pinstripes is done.
Judge, already with a Hall of Fame resume but lacking a signature October moment, delivered one Tuesday night when the Yankees needed it.
The two-time AL MVP rocked a tying three-run homer off the foul pole in left in the fourth inning, turning on a 100-mph 0-and-2 pitch by hard-throwing righty Louis Varland, capping a Yankees comeback from five runs down going into the third.
The Stadium sellout crowd of 47,399 and the home dugout erupted into hysterics. An inning later, Jazz Chisholm Jr. blasted a go-ahead homer into the second deck in right that gave the Yankees the lead for good en route to a season-saving 9-6 victory over a slipshod Blue Jays team that paved the road to the comeback with two crucial errors.
“Just an awesome MVP-like performance,” Aaron Boone said of Judge, a two-time AL MVP who went 3-for-4 with the homer and an RBI double. “It was [a] best player in the game-type performance.”
Cam Schlittler, who struck out 12 Red Sox over eight scoreless innings in a deciding Game 3 victory in the Wild Card Series, gets the ball Wednesday night to try and send this series back to Rogers Centre for Game 5. The Blue Jays, whose relievers collectively have arrived on the mound with gas canisters this series, are likely to go with a bullpen game Wednesday.
The Yankees’ bullpen, shaky much of this season and into the postseason, was terrific in relief of an ineffective Carlos Rodon, combining to throw 6 2⁄3 scoreless innings and allow just three hits.
“For us, live to fight another day, right?” said Cody Bellinger, who went 2-for-4. “That’s all you can really do in this game.”
The Yankees, trailing 6-1 going into the bottom of the third, scored twice in the bottom half, getting back-to-back doubles from Trent Grisham and Judge. Bellinger singled and scored later in the inning on Giancarlo Stanton’s sacrifice fly to make it 6-3.
“Doesn’t feel great, obviously not what we were hoping for but it’s where we were at,” third baseman Ryan McMahon said. “I don’t think the guys lost faith and I think you saw it . . . I think a couple guys were pissed off. I think it [the early deficit] kind of kicked us in the butt and got us locked in.”
Former Yankee Isiah Kiner-Falefa booted a routine Ben Rice grounder in the first that should have been the third out, and led to Stanton’s RBI single that made it 2-1.
With one out in the fourth, Austin Wells lifted a high pop into short left along the line. Third baseman Addison Barger drifted back and seemed to have trouble with the wind, dropping the ball for an error that put Wells on second. After Grisham walked, Judge fell behind 0-and-2 before turning on Varland’s 100-mph heater that was in on his hands, skying the ball down the line, the ball somehow staying fair.
“ ‘Hit the [expletive] foul pole’ is all I was thinking,” Bellinger, in the on-deck circle, said. “He’s got one of the best swings in the game that I’ve ever seen.”
What was most impressive about the swing off Varland?
“That he hit it,” Bellinger said.
Judge, now fifth in postseason homers in franchise history with 17, said: “I felt like I made good contact, and I thought we had a chance. You just never know with the wind, if it’s going to push it foul, keep curving or not. But I guess a couple ghosts out there helped kind of keep that fair.”
A half-inning after tying the game with his three-run shot off Varland, Judge came through on defense. With Ernie Clement on second after a double, Judge made a diving catch in right on an Anthony Santander liner for the second out of the fifth. Lefthander Tim Hill stranded the runner, and Chisholm, with one out in the bottom half, sent a 1-and-1, 99-mph Varland fastball 409 feet to right to give the Yankees the lead. Wells’ two-out RBI single later in the inning made it 8-6.
After Judge was intentionally walked with one out in the sixth, Bellinger doubled and Judge came in on Rice’s sacrifice fly to make it 9-6.
Neither starter made it through three innings. Rodon went just 2 1⁄3 innings, allowing six runs, six hits and two walks. Toronto righthander Shane Bieber lasted 2 2⁄3 innings, allowing three runs (two earned), five hits and one walk.
But the Yankees’ bullpen was up to the herculean task of holding down a Blue Jays lineup responsible for outscoring the Yankees 23-8 in the first two games of the series.
Fernando Cruz, Camilo Doval, Hill and Devin Williams passed the baton to David Bednar, who came on with one out in the eighth and struck out two of five batters in recording the save.
“That was amazing,” Hill said of the bullpen’s performance. “But first and foremost, what our offense did was also amazing. That’s what I’m kind of blown away by. We just did what we’re supposed to do.”
Starting with their captain, and as a result, there will be a Wednesday.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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