Blue Jays take-aways: Hyun-Jin Ryu delivers a pitching exhibition to Yankees

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This article was published 13/04/2021 (1672 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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

Blue Jays ace Hyun-Jin Ryu had his best start of the young season in a 7-3 win over the New York Yankees, which is saying something for a guy who has an ERA of 1.89 through three starts.

The lefty was the personification of the old baseball saw: “Hitting is timing, pitching is disrupting timing.” He changed speeds, varied his pitch mix and did it all while throwing quality strikes away from the middle of the plate.

With a couple of double plays turned behind him, it wasn’t until the sixth inning that the Yankees even got a fourth batter to come to bat in an inning, never mind a runner in scoring position.

With two out in the sixth, Jay Bruce doubled to right-centre, only the fourth ball Ryu had allowed to be hit out of the infield to that point. Against the Yankees. He then issued his first and only walk of the night before retiring Giancarlo Stanton on a comebacker.

Ryu would likely have completed seven innings but for a throwing error by Cavan Biggio with one out in the seventh; instead he left after 6 2/3 innings without having allowed an earned run.

• Thank you very much: The only time the Blue Jays were in trouble was in the top of the eighth, after a rare shaky outing by Jordan Romano. The big right-hander came into the game after Clint Frazier rifled a 107-m.p.h. line drive off David Phelps’ lower back, with a runner on first, nobody out and a five-run lead. When Romano left, following a four-pitch walk to Gary Sanchez, the Yankees were bringing the tying run to the plate with two down.

Julian Merryweather came on in relief to face Aaron Hicks, and he bounced a 1-0 changeup, which got away from Danny Jansen. The runners took off from first and second, but Sanchez, the trailing runner, found himself less than halfway to second when Jansen came up with the ball, so he stopped and turned back to first. When Jansen threw to first, Sanchez reversed course and started for second. Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., with that outstanding throwing arm of his, fired an absolute seed to Bo Bichette at second, and Bichette was easily able to run down the slow-footed Sanchez without allowing the lead runner to score.

Merryweather was able to get out of the jam without having to actually retire a hitter.

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• Something out of nothing: There’s nothing like a rally that starts with two out and nobody on, and the Jays had one in the fourth that wound up sending Yankees starter Jameson Taillon to the showers.

The Jays had built a 3-0 lead through the first three innings, thanks to five singles — one of which, by Josh Palacios, drove in two runs — a hit batsman and a Randal Grichuk sacrifice fly, but they did some wall-banging in the fourth.

With Taillon a pitch away from putting up a zero in that fourth inning, Marcus Semien connected on a 2-2 fastball and hit a fly ball to left that just carried and carried into the Florida night for his team-leading fourth home run of the season.

Bichette and Guerrero followed with ringing doubles, one to the gap in left-centre, the other to the gap in right-centre, with Guerrero’s knocking Taillon from the game.

Bichette had already extended his hit streak to 10 games with a single in the third — it’s the longest active hitting streak in the major leagues. Guerrero only has a six-game hit streak, but he has reached base safely in every game so far this season.

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