TORONTO — The Yankees showed up Monday night. After months of speculation and concern about whether the Yankees would be able to bring their entire roster through the the strict Canadian COVID vaccine travel requirements for players, the first-place Bombers showed up Monday night with their entire roster.
Gleyber Torres homered and singled in the Yankees’ entire offense as they edged out the Blue Jays 3-2 at the Rogers Centre in the first of the three-game series.
Torres’ ninth inning RBI single extended the Yankees’ winning streak to 10 games and they have won 12 of their last 13 games. It was the 17th time in 23 games this season that the Yankees (17-6) had a game decided by three runs or less.
Giancarlo Stanton led off the ninth with a ground-ball single up the middle. Running for the right fielder, Tim Locastro stole second to get in scoring position. Matt Chapman made a good grab of Josh Donaldson’s broken-bat, soft ground ball and checked Locastro back to second before getting the out at first. Aaron Hicks struck out for the third time for the second out, but Torres brought Locastro in on a line-drive single to right-center field to get back the lead.
Jordan Montgomery allowed two earned runs on six hits. He did not walk a batter and struck out five. He got 13 swings and misses, six each on his changeup and curveball and one on his sinker.
Torres gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead in the fourth. The second baseman lined an opposite-field home run into the visitors bullpen in right field. The 376-foot shot was Torres’ third home run of the season. It drove in Donaldson, who had reached on a single.
Torres has driven in nine runs in his last six games.
That’s all the run support he got, but Montgomery is used to it. He has gotten an average of 3.74 runs of support per start since the beginning of the 2021 season, fourth-lowest in the majors.
And Montgomery gave those two runs right back in the bottom of the inning. George Springer led off with a single and scored from first on Bo Bichette’s double. Matt Chapman drove in the Blue Jays’ shortstop with a single.
Montgomery gave up a leadoff single to Bichette in the sixth and Boone went to get the lefty. Jonathan Loaisiga walked Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., the first batter he faced, before coaxing a double play ground ball from Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. He struck out Chapman to strand Bichette at third.
Miguel Castro came in to get two outs and then Clay Holmes threw 1.1 scoreless innings. Chad Green came in to close it out, earning his first save of the season.
Chapman was robbed of an extra-base hit in the second on the best defensive play Stanton has made as a Yankee. The 6-foot-6 right fielder leapt to catch the Blue Jays’ third baseman’s fly ball to the top of the wall. He crashed to the ground holding on to it and then got up and smiled.
There had been concern this spring about Canada’s vaccine requirements for foreign visitors for the Yankees, who had a few players still unvaccinated as of March. Monday, however, every player on the 26-man roster was in Toronto — meaning they were vaccinated — and available to play.
“This is obviously what I had hoped for. And fortunately we’re in a position that we’re all able to be here,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said before Monday night’s game.
Canada’s government requires a person to have received a second vaccine dose — or one dose of Johnson & Johnson — at least 14 days prior to entry. The Yankees had the 85% vaccination rate last season, but also had three bouts with COVID-19 that hit players like Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rizzo.
Boone said that he did have some discussions about the importance of being able to have the entire team for the nine scheduled games in Toronto this season, but also did not push his beliefs on his players.
“I always feel strongly that it is very much a personal choice,” Boone said. “And certainly whatever happened, I was going to respect whatever choice anyone made in that regard.”
