Blue Jays take-aways: Good signs around the horn in series win over Yankees

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This article was published 04/04/2021 (1965 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on Sunday’s Blue Jays-Yankees game:

The Blue Jays have taken us on a roller-coaster ride with their defence early in the season, with some outstanding glovework in the opener followed by a few issues in Saturday’s loss. In Sunday’s rubber match, the gloves were back on the climb.

It started early, when starter T.J. Zeuch gave up a rocket to the second batter he saw. Aaron Judge pounded a line drive that came off the bat at 114.1 miles per hour and was likely headed for the gap in right-centre, but Marcus Semien made a spectacular leaping grab to haul it in. A ground ball later and Zeuch was out of the inning, as opposed to having to work against the middle of the Yankees’ order with a runner in scoring position in the very first inning.

Zeuch was in trouble in the third, with two on and one out and Judge at the plate once again. The big righty threw an 0-and-1 cutter away and Judge didn’t try to pull it, but still hit in on the ground. Semien shuffled to his left to get it, and his feed to Bo Bichette at second was high, so the shortstop had to go up and grab it near his left ear. Instead of setting himself to make the throw, Bichette just went with it and did an old-school Savardian Spin-o-rama before making a perfect throw to first to complete the double play.

• Oh, that bullpen: This section was going to be about David Phelps, and how his under-the-radar off-season acquisition could prove to be rather large. The veteran righty posted an ugly 12.91 ERA last season in 10 appearances after being moved at the deadline from Milwaukee to shore up the Phillies’ cursed bullpen — allowing five home runs in just 7 2/3 innings, but also striking out 31 against just five walks in 20 2/3 innings over the entire season. Phelps was surgical in retiring the Yankees in order in the bottom of the seventh, with a couple of strikeouts and a pop-up, setting the stage beautifully for Jordan Romano and Julian Merryweather to take it from there.

As good as Phelps was, Romano and Merryweather were just silly, especially the latter. The 29-year-old, who battled catastrophic arm injuries to finally make his major-league debut last season, faced the middle of the Yankees’ order in the bottom of the ninth and quite simply overwhelmed them.

Merryweather picked up his second save of the season, following up his perfect 10th inning on Friday afternoon with another spotless frame. This time, a Yankee did manage to put a ball in play against him, at least. Jay Bruce got a piece of a 99.9-m.p.h. fastball and hit a lazy fly ball to left into the waiting glove of Teoscar Hernandez. The big righty has struck out all five of the other batters who have stood in against him so far this season.

With his injury history, the Jays are going to be very careful with Merryweather. It’s highly doubtful that he’ll pitch on back-to-back days for a while, if at all this season. But the early returns could not be better.

• Revenge is sweet: Last year, the Jays only made one trip to the Bronx, and it wasn’t pretty. They went to Yankee Stadium to kick off the final fortnight of the season, and actually sat a half-game ahead of New York in the standings when the series started, with dreams of clinching second place dancing in their heads.

Those dreams came crashing down in a hurry, as the Yanks put up 20 runs in the opener and went on to lay three straight beatings on them, scoring in double-digits in each game and starting the Jays off on what would become a six-game losing streak.

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They did take three out of four from the Yankees in Buffalo the next week, clinching a playoff spot in the finale, but this was their first trip back to Yankee Stadium since, and even though injuries to Nate Pearson and Robbie Ray forced them to use their sixth and seventh starters, the Jays held the Yankees to just eight runs over three games, winning two of three.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness