TORONTO — The eyes have it.
Aaron Judge’s specifically.
The Yankees captain, whose eyes became front and center in this series when the Blue Jays contacted Major League Baseball about Judge glancing toward his dugout during an eighth-inning at-bat Monday, hit a two-run homer in the first inning Thursday night, helping lift his club to a 4-2 victory in front of 33,290 at Rogers Centre.
It gave Judge six homers in his last six games, including four home runs in the four games in Toronto in which the Yankees (26-20) won three. Judge has 12 homers this season. He just missed a fifth homer in the series, settling for a double in the sixth inning when he hammered one off the very top of the wall in right-center.
Judge overshadowed, though not completely, an outstanding start by Nestor Cortes. He allowed two runs, five hits and one walk over six innings in which he struck out seven. Then there was the terrific work by a patchwork bullpen that was without Michael King, Clay Holmes and Wandy Peralta because of extensive use the first three games.
Cortes entered Thursday 3-2 with a 5.53 ERA, including 0-2 with an 8.53 ERA in his previous four outings. He departed after a leadoff walk issued to Whit Merrifield to start the seventh and Aaron Boone called on soft-throwing righty Ryan Weber. The reliever, who delivered 2 1/3 scoreless innings in Tuesday night’s victory, allowed a single to Danny Jansen, the hero for Toronto Wednesday night after hitting a game-winning homer in the 10th. Weber walked Alejandro Kirk to load the bases for Brandon Belt. After a mound visit from pitching coach Matt Blake, Belt flied to short left. Up stepped Vlad Guerrero Jr., who left Tuesday’s game with a knee injury and did not play Wednesday, to pinch hit for Santiago Espinal and the first baseman delivered a sacrifice fly to center to make it 3-2. The dangerous George Springer flied to center to end the threat.
Albert Abreu pitched a scoreless eighth – Matt Chapman barely missed tying it with a foul ball down the leftfield line with one out – and Ron Marinaccio, after getting a 4-2 cushion courtesy of Anthony Volpe’s seventh homer of the season in the top of the ninth, pitched a scoreless ninth for his first career save (he had been 0-for-3 in save chances this season).
All of it capped a highly entertaining series that had playoff intensity, and the teams won’t see each other again until Sept. 19 when the Blue Jays visit the Stadium.
Mostly missing from Thursday’s game were the shenanigans from the first two games, though in the early innings Boone could be seen yelling at Pete Walker, the Blue Jays pitching coach who verbally went after Yankees third base coach Luis Rojas during Tuesday’s game.
Toronto righthander Jose Berrios, 3-3 with a 4.70 ERA coming in, pitched reasonably well, allowing three runs and six hits over 6 2/3 innings in which he walked one and struck out eight.
His toughest inning was the first when Gleyber Torres led off with a single, setting up Judge. The rightfielder, the night’s DH, launched a 1-and-1 sinker to center, the blast estimated at 430 feet making it 2-0. Counting Volpe’s ninth-inning blast, that upped the Yankees’ homer total to 33 in their last 17 games.
The Blue Jays (25-19) cut the deficit to 2-1 in the bottom half when Bo Bichette rocketed a 1-and-0 cutter to deep left for his ninth homer.
Oswaldo Cabrera, who started in right, doubled to center to open the seventh but Volpe struck out, and Kyle Higashioka, the starting catcher with Jose Trevino on the IL with a left hamstring strain, lined to center. Aaron Hicks, however, lined an RBI single to center to make it 3-1, the second of the outfielder’s three hits in the game.
