Yankees have let the Blue Jays walk all over them. Will they show some pride? | Politi

It would be one thing if the Toronto Blue Jays had simply out-pitched, out-hit, out-hustled, out-smarted, out-defended and out-managed the Yankees in the first two games of the AL Division Series this weekend. That, of course, would have been plenty bad enough.

But this?

This was another level of humiliation. The Blue Jays didn’t merely dominate the Yankees in these two games by an aggregate score of 23-8. They preened on the bases paths after their extra-base hits, flipped their bats with relish after their homers and wore their bedazzled home run jacket — more on this in a minute — with such attitude that you’d have thought they already won this series.

They have not won this series, which is the single piece of good news that the Yankees bring back with them from Toronto. Some of the most memorable October moments in this franchise’s history have come after erasing 2-0 deficits in the postseason.

It takes a vivid imagination right now, however, to envision that happening after this two-day unraveling north of the border. When FOX informed its audience that the Yankees had never given up this many runs in back-to-back postseason games — 21 at the time — there were still four innings left in Game 2.

Maybe you’re encouraged the Yankees put up seven runs in garbage time. Yankee legends Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez were trying to make that argument on TV after the 13-7 loss was in the books, and their longtime foil, David Ortiz, practically laughed them off the set.

“They can bring Jesus back, and they’re still going to Cancun,” Big Papi said. “It’s over. It’s a wrap.”

Ortiz won that debate almost as decisively as the Blue Jays won this game. Nobody will remember that the Yankees made the score look better in the late innings against the back end of the Toronto bullpen. But they will remember the show that the Blue Jays put on for their delirious, success-starved fans when it mattered.

The Yankees signed Max Fried to a $218 million contract specifically for games like this, but the Blue Jays chased him in the fourth inning. Fried had to watch from the dugout when Toronto slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a towering grand slam off reliever Will Warren, then returned to the Toronto dugout to don the aforementioned home run jacket and bask in the fans’ adoration with a long curtain call.

The wardrobe change is mostly harmless fun. “The Blue Jacket” is embroidered on the left arm of the garment that is specially designed for the 2025 playoffs, while the right arm is covered with a bejeweled Canadian flag. The team’s postseason slogan — “want it all” — is also featured prominently.

You do wonder, though: Were any of the Yankees a little chaffed by Guerrero’s pose at home plate after drilling that Warren pitch, or the exaggerated bat flip that followed, or the extended dugout celebration, or, well, anything?

Can they find some motivation not only in the way the Blue Jays beat them, but from being completely embarrassed in the process?

Remember: This is a team that supposedly headed to Ontario with something to prove after losing six of seven games at Rogers Centre this season.

“Contrary to some thoughts up here [in Toronto], we’re a really good team,” manager Aaron Boone said before the ALDS began. For reasons unknown, he was responding to a dig from Blue Jays TV guy Buck Martinez, who had called the Yankees “not a good team” during a broadcast in early September.

Well, so far, Martinez looks spot on. The Yankees were completely outclassed by Toronto pitcher Trey Yesavage, a 22-year-old making his fourth career start who had 11 strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings. Just three days earlier, it was the Yankees’ young hurler, Cam Schlittler, giving them hope with a dominant AL Wild Card Series performance that their starting pitching might be good enough to end the 15-year championship drought; now, it’s possible they won’t get to his next start in Game 4.

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“We haven’t lost any confidence,” Boone said after the game. “Obviously, they had our number and have gotten the better of us so far this year, but I don’t think anyone in our room doesn’t feel like we can’t go out and beat them.”

Things can change quickly in the postseason, and who knows, maybe that will happen as this series shifts back to New York. If it doesn’t, the Yankees are going to wear the embarrassment of what happened in Toronto for a long, long offseason.

They were out-pitched, out-hit, out-hustled, out-smarted, out-defended and out-managed, and that didn’t begin to describe what happened in the first two games of this ALDS. The Blue Jays not only trounced them, they rubbed it in their faces as an entire nation rejoiced.

Are the Yankees really going to let that be the lasting image of this season?