Yankees get battered by Blue Jays, fall behind 2-0 in ALDS
TORONTO — Beatdown doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Humiliation doesn’t quite capture it. Nor does train wreck.
No, what the Blue Jays did to the Yankees in the first two games of their Division Series defies singular description. In the Yankees’ long history of postseason play, they never had back-to-back games like these.
Blown out by nine runs in Game 1, the Yankees turned in a hold-my-beer performance in Game 2.
Ace Max Fried couldn’t make it through four innings and Will Warren was shelled for four of Toronto’s five homers. The Yankees fell behind by 12 runs through five, making it 20 straight runs scored by the Blue Jays in a seven-inning span. Though they rallied in the late innings against the soft underbelly of the Jays’ bullpen, the Yankees took a 13-7 loss Sunday that put their season on the brink.
“I know we’ll show up and ready to go expecting to win Tuesday night,” Aaron Boone said. “Obviously, it feels like the world’s caving in around you, you lose two games like that in their building where it doesn’t go right. But all of a sudden, you go out there and win a ballgame on Tuesday, the needle can change.”
The Yankees, who have been outscored 23-8 in the best-of-five series, could be eliminated as soon as Tuesday night in Game 3 at Yankee Stadium.
In the history of the postseason, teams that have taken a 2-0 lead in a best-of-five series have advanced 80 of 90 times. In ALDS history, teams winning Games 1 and 2 at home have moved on 31 of 34 times. The most recent comeback in either of those scenarios was the 2017 Yankees, managed by Joe Girardi, who dropped the first two games in Cleveland before winning three straight.
“We’ve been here before,” said Aaron Judge, who had two hits and two walks Sunday and who was a rookie on that ’17 team. “We’ve got experience. We’ve got guys in here who have been to the World Series, in some tough moments, backs against the wall, especially all season long. We’ve just got to show up and do our thing.”
A rollicking sellout crowd of 44,764 at Rogers Centre, which continues to be a house of pain for the Yankees as they fell to 1-8 with 75 runs allowed in this building in 2025, saw the Blue Jays do their thing, starting with rookie phenom Trey Yesavage.
The 22-year-old righthander, with an unhittable splitter that brought to mind the Astros’ Mike Scott in the 1986 postseason, provided a performance similar to rookie Cam Schlittler’s in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series.
Yesavage started the season in Class A, was called up in mid-September and made all of three big-league starts before Sunday. He struck out 11 — including six in a row at one point — in 5 1⁄3 hitless innings before being removed.
“The funky release,” Ben Rice said of the trouble Yankees hitters had with the 6-4, 225-pound Yesavage’s unusual over-the-top delivery. “It’s definitely a little different . . . It was definitely something you had to adjust to.”
Trailing 12-0 with two outs and none on in the sixth inning, the Yankees picked up 10 hits in their next 12 at-bats plus a sacrifice fly — and scored seven runs in the sixth and seventh — but it was far too little and far too late.
The Yankees got on the board in the sixth after Blue Jays manager John Schneider somewhat curiously pulled Yesavage, who was at 78 pitches. Judge singled for the Yankees’ first hit and Cody Bellinger hit a two-out, two-run homer off lefthander Justin Bruihl. That made it 12-2, and the Yankees scored five runs in the seventh against Eric Lauer and Tommy Nance to make it 13-7 (George Springer homered off Warren in the bottom of the sixth to make it 13-2).
Fried, who went 19-5 with a 2.86 ERA this season — and entered Sunday with a 6-0 record, a 1.37 ERA and a 1.04 WHIP in his previous eight starts, including the postseason — was charged with seven runs and allowed eight hits and two walks in three innings-plus.
“I didn’t get it done,” said Fried, who entered the day 11-1 with a 1.82 ERA in 16 starts after a Yankees loss but was yanked after Andres Gimenez and Myles Straw walked to start the fourth. “Especially coming out in a game like this. Needed to have a good one.”
After walking Springer and picking up a strikeout, Warren allowed a 415-foot grand slam by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. that made it 9-0.
Warren allowed six runs and seven hits in 4 2⁄3 innings, including Guerrero’s grand slam, both of Daulton Varsho’s home runs and Springer’s solo shot.
Guerrero, 3-for-4 with a homer and two RBIs in Game 1, went 3-for-5 with four RBIs on Sunday. Varsho was 4-for-5 with two homers, two doubles and four RBIs and Ernie Clement, who hit a two-run homer in the second off Fried, went 3-for-4 with three RBIs. He hadn’t homered since Aug. 12, going 40 games and 143 plate appearances without one.
“Obviously, we had a rough showing here and, obviously, we’d rather be up 2-0 than down 2-0,” Fried said. “But we have a lot of faith in this club, and if there’s anyone that can win three in a row, we did down the stretch and we believe in each other in here.”
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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