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Try it freeTORONTO — The Yankees are in deep split.
The only thing resembling a real competition on the field Sunday at Rogers Centre was which side of the Yankees could be humiliated more: their hitters, who were no-hit for 5 ¹/₃ innings by rookie Trey Yesavage, or their own pitching staff, led by Max Fried, which got tagged for 11 runs before recording a 11th out.
Yesavage, armed with a devastating splitter, dominated and made life miserable for the Yankees while Fried wilted on the other side of the pitching matchup, resulting in an embarrassing 13-7 beatdown by the Blue Jays in Game 2 of the ALDS at Rogers Centre.
The Yankees, assuming they are allowed back into the country, will fly home with their season on life support, having been blown out by a combined score of 23-8 in the first two games of this best-of-five series. It was 22-1 before the Yankees finally started hitting off the Blue Jays bullpen late to make the final score a bit more respectable.
They will have to sit with that reality through Monday’s off day before Carlos Rodón tries to save the season in Game 3 on Tuesday at Yankee Stadium. And even if they are somehow able to force a return trip for Game 5, the Yankees are now 1-8 this year at Rogers Centre, which was an absolute madhouse on Sunday with a sellout crowd of 44,764.
The 22-year-old Yesavage, the No. 20 overall pick in the 2024 draft who made his MLB debut on Sept. 15, turned in a performance for the ages. Throwing from a high arm slot with a splitter that continually brought the Yankees to their knees with ugly swings, Yesavage struck out 11 across 5 ¹/₃ no-hit innings while walking only one. Blue Jays manager John Schneider got booed by his home crowd when he went to the mound to pull Yesavage after his fourth career major league start.
Meanwhile, Fried did not make it out of the fourth inning, getting rocked for seven runs on eight hits across three-plus innings. The $218 million left-hander gave up a two-run homer to Ernie Clement in the second inning — which came after an Aaron Judge fielding error on Daulton Varsho’s double — three more runs in the third and then allowed the first two runners to reach in the fourth, at which point Aaron Boone yanked him.
Will Warren did not provide much relief, as Vladimir Guerrero Jr. took him deep for a monster grand slam that made it a 9-0 and earned the Blue Jays star a curtain call — rivaling the one Yesavage would get a few innings later.
Varsho added a two-run shot to make it 11-0 before the knockout punch of an inning was over.
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By the end of the night, Warren had given up four home runs — a second to Varsho and another to George Springer — as the Yankees let him wear it into the eighth inning so they could preserve the rest of their bullpen.
Guerrero and Varsho combined to go 7-for-10 with three home runs, two doubles, eight RBIs and six runs scored to lead the Blue Jays’ offensive explosion.
Yesavage’s outing was reminiscent of what Cam Schlittler did to the Red Sox in Game 3 of the wild-card series, and then some. Largely an unknown to the Yankees, whose only player to face him before Sunday was third-string catcher J.C. Escarra, Yesavage started the season in Low-A (his pro debut) before flying through the Blue Jays system. Along the way, he had faced the Yankees’ Low-A, Double and Triple-A affiliates, all of whom had more success against him than the big league club did Sunday. His magic weapon was his splitter, which the Yankees swung at 16 times and whiffed on 11 of them.
After Yesavage’s day was done, the Yankees finally broke up the no-hit bid later in the sixth inning on a single from Judge. Cody Bellinger followed with a two-run shot that broke up the shutout.
The Yankees then scratched across five runs in the seventh inning against the Blue Jays bullpen.