TORONTO — Before walking to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded in the top of the ninth inning of a tie game Wednesday, Aaron Judge was having a fairly miserable series.
The Yankees captain was 0-for-12 with seven strikeouts, punctuating a slow start to the season.
But he delivered just in time to avoid a complete clunker of a series for himself and the Yankees, who had lost three straight coming into the game.
Judge ripped a two-run single down the third-base line to lift the Yankees to a 6-4 win over the Blue Jays, narrowly avoiding a three-game sweep at Rogers Centre.
Judge’s clutch hit came on a full count against lefty Tim Mayza — the same reliever who served up the outfielder’s 61st home run in 2022.
The Blue Jays (10-9) appeared to have a right-hander ready in the bullpen, but they stuck with Mayza and paid the price.
In the bottom of the ninth, Anthony Volpe finished the game with a terrific play up the middle, sliding to snag a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. grounder and firing to first for the final out.
The Yankees (13-6) had entered the ninth inning trailing 4-2. Giancarlo Stanton led off with a 437-foot home run off Erik Swanson to make it a one-run game.
Gleyber Torres, who had been 0-for-3 with three strikeouts on the day, followed with a single up the middle before Alex Verdugo doubled to the right field corner to put the tying run on third.
With the infield in, Swanson got the first out when Oswaldo Cabrera hit a chopper to second base.
Mayza then entered from the bullpen, with Jose Trevino pinch-hitting for Austin Wells. Trevino delivered a line-drive single off the glove of drawn-in second baseman Isiah Kiner-Falefa to tie the game at four.
One out later, Juan Soto drew a full-count walk to load the bases for Judge.
Before the ninth inning, Soto and Cabrera had been responsible for five of the Yankees’ six hits. Soto doubled home Cabrera (who had also doubled) in the fifth inning off Kevin Gausman and then went deep for a solo shot against lefty reliever Genesis Cabrera in the eighth to pull the Yankees within 4-2.
Gausman became the third Blue Jays starter in as many days to stifle the Yankees’ bats, holding them to one run across five innings despite coming off back–to-back brutal starts in which he got hit around (including by the Yankees a week and a half ago in The Bronx).
In the three-game set, Gausman, Yusei Kikuchi and Chris Bassitt combined to thow 17 ¹/₃ innings in which they allowed just three runs on 12 hits and six walks while striking out 20.
Marcus Stroman, making his second start at Rogers Centre since the Blue Jays traded him to the Mets in 2019, was solid.
The right-hander gave up two runs across 5 ¹/₃ innings, both of them coming on a home run by Daulton Varsho in the second inning.
Varsho homered again in the seventh off lefty reliever Caleb Ferguson to put the Blue Jays up 3-1.