Blue Jays show they can be Bronx Bombers, slugging three homers in win

NEW YORK — Once again in full control of their post-season aspirations after a whiplash-inducing week of standings surfing, the Toronto Blue Jays are intent on a smoother ride through the back-half of September than they had on the front end.

“Crazy league, crazy division,” said manager John Schneider. “Hopefully it’s nothing as drastic as what the last couple of weeks were, hopefully we can play consistent games and score some runs. We’ve got to worry about two more teams, we play them twice each, teams we’re familiar with and hopefully nothing as crazy as the last week.”

Minus Yusei Kikuchi exiting the sixth inning with a left upper trap muscle cramp, the Blue Jays will gladly take 11 more outings like the one they delivered Tuesday, when they rode homers from George Springer, Bo Bichette and Alejandro Kirk plus five strong innings from their lefty in a 7-1 win over the New York Yankees.

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Springer opened the scoring with the 57^th leadoff homer of his career, Cavan Biggio — moved up to the cleanup spot — dunked a go-ahead single into left-centre in the fourth, Bichette opened some breathing room with a two-run drive in the fifth and Kirk padded the margins with another two-run shot in the ninth.

Kikuchi cramped during a leadoff walk to DJ LeMahieu in the sixth but was in total control after allowing Gleyber Torres’ run-scoring double in the first, allowing just four hits and the walk while striking out seven. He didn’t seem concerned about missing his next outing — saying that he “should be good,” pivotal for a club lacking a clear No. 6 for the rotation at triple-A Buffalo — and suggested an anxious night anticipating this start contributed to his early departure.

“I only got 11 hours of sleep so maybe that’s affecting this cramping today,” Kikuchi said through interpreter Yusuke Oshima.

Asked how many hours he usually gets, he said, “13, 14 hours.”

Otherwise, it was a clean, drama-free night for the Blue Jays (84-67), who remain one game up on the Texas Rangers (83-68), 6-4 winners over Boston, and are 1.5 up on the Seattle Mariners (82-68) pending the result of their game at Oakland. 

“A win is a win, no matter how calm, it doesn’t matter,” said Bichette, who also singled, walked and ranged far to his right to start a difficult and clever inning-ending double play in the sixth. “Got to do it again tomorrow.”

The Blue Jays finish out their season with five more games against the Yankees, two more in the Bronx before three at Rogers Centre next week, along with two series, home and away, versus the Tampa Bay Rays. Each win pushes the math more and more in their favour.

The clash at Yankee Stadium before a crowd of 38,545 was the first between the clubs since a four-game set in Toronto May 15-18, when TV broadcast cameras captured Aaron Judge glancing over at first-base coach Travis Chapman before hitting a home run off reliever Jay Jackson.

That triggered some angry back-and-forth between the rival coaching staffs and provided a tense backdrop for the four games, of which the Yankees won three. The teams’ seasons have taken different routes since, the Blue Jays remaining in contention all season while the Yankees, decimated by injuries and lacking the depth to overcome them, have faded into a battle to avoid the AL East basement with the Boston Red Sox.

Still, they’re 76-75 after winning six of eight before Tuesday and there’s always an element of gamesmanship between the sides, even if both Yankees manager Aaron Boone and Schneider played it down beforehand.

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“Not much, to be honest with you,” said Schneider. “Different time of the year, for sure and kind of what had happened has happened. You prepare to try to beat them on the field, that’s it.”

The Blue Jays began preparing for other possibilities Tuesday, as well, with Brandon Belt, sidelined by lumbar spine muscle spasms, beginning a hitting progression and catcher Jamie Ritchie added to the taxi squad so he could get up to speed with the club’s pitchers, just in case.

Should Kikuchi need to miss a start, the Blue Jays would likely turn to Bowden Francis, optioned back to Buffalo last week, as the bulk arm in a bullpen day, but the lefty was talking like someone already thinking about his next turn.

After getting roughed up for six runs in five innings against the Rangers last week, Kikuchi pointed to spotty fastball command as an issue to work through and he was better on that front against the Yankees. 

“But it’s still not perfect, especially with the fastballs when I was at my peak performance, doing really well,” he explained. “I still have to make adjustments, I feel like. But that should be good next time.”

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Schneider suggested that Kikuchi could have gone longer, but “he’s been so valuable for us, just being extra careful with him at that point.”

The game was relatively in hand at that point, but Yimi Garcia had to work through Judge, Gleyber Torres and Giancarlo Stanton in the sixth, with Bichette ranging right to field a chopper from the latter and throwing to second against his momentum to start a twin-kill.

Trevor Richards followed with a clean seventh, Jordan Hicks handled the eighth and after a three spot in the top of the ninth when Kirk went deep and an Anthony Volpe error allowed Kevin Kiermaier to score, the Blue Jays were able to sit Jordan Romano in favour of Nate Pearson.

“In this time of year everyone’s going to be available most nights, but being able to avoid Romano there, Yimi being really good, Trev being good, Hicks being really good, the add-on runs are huge, you know what I mean?” said Schneider. “We’ve been saying that all along that if you could do that and you save some leverage guys there at the end, that’s just huge for the rest of the series going forward.”

That’s one of many positive by-products from a lower-stress night. Bichette wasn’t wrong when he said a win is a win, but sometimes a team can position itself better to win the next night, too, which is exactly what the Blue Jays did.

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