Judge Wakes Up & The Yankees Are Still Alive!

Set the pigeons free! The Yankees finally made some magic happen. I guess it’s just like they say…it’s better late than never? We live to see another day. A day….but I’m praying to the baseball gods that is turns into more than just one day.

We’ve played three games in the ALDS and we witnessed terrible starting pitching in ALL of them. I thought Max Fried was bad on Sunday but Carlos Rodon was a disaster! It looked bleak after he allowed 6 runs after 2 2/3 innings. It looked like winter was starting early….until the Yankees were given a gift.

Thankfully, Shane Bieber had a rough night also. He had a short appearance too, he was removed in the third inning after allowing three runs on five hits, one walk, and two strikeouts. He struggled against the Yankees top of the order, giving up back-to-back doubles in the second inning and being pulled with the Blue Jays up 6-3. The Blue Jays thought he would be an advantage for them. He has experience pitching at Yankee stadium, so the Blue Jays hoped he could put an end to the series. His elevated pitches did him in and the Yankees clearly read him well. They had some hard hit balls against him.

Then finally, Aaron Judge had his huge playoff moment that the Yankees (and all of us!) have been waiting for. He ran into a 99.7 mph fastball for a three-run homer off the left-field foul pole to tie the game at six. After that, everything seemed to fall into place as the Yankees stayed hot and the Blue Jays crumbled under bad defense.

Last night, the Blue Jays looked like the 2024 Yankees. Former Yankee Isiah Kiner-Falefa started the trend in the bottom of the first, booting a ground ball at second base. It helped the Yankees score a run. In the fourth inning, Blue Jays third baseman Addison Barger, missed a routine fly ball from Austin Wells with one out and nobody on. Barger was a pinch-hitter in the game and I thank the Blue Jays so much. Without his addition in the game, two batters later we may not have seen a Judge home run. The mistakes didn’t end there. In the sixth inning, Anthony Santander couldn’t catch a line drive from Cody Bellinger and gave the Yankees a double and an eventual run from the Yankees to pad their lead to 9-6.

This feels good now, but the Yankees can’t celebrate this today. The Blue Jays are a good defensive team. What we saw last night is not typical and we can’t rely on a sloppy game from them again. We need to swing the bats, move runners, play strong defense and PLEASE…..have a good start from Cam Schlittler.

The Blue Jays are approaching today as a bullpen game, but we have Schlittler! It’s a lot of pressure for him, especially after what he just did against the Red Sox. 

We CAN tie this up today….I’m crossing every possible body part I can and praying to the baseball gods. Please Schlitt….keep us alive!