Home But Not Done Are The Yankees

Image Credit: Bill Menzel/Latino Sports

BRONX, NY — This American League Division Series is not over, though the percentages stand against the Yankees as they will need to win three consecutive games in the best-of-five series against the Blue Jays. And though the games have to be played, including Game 3 Tuesday night in the Bronx and potentially 4 on Wednesday, a team needs to convey a message.

The Yankees at home will have the raucous home crowd in their corner. The Blue Jays tend to ignore the adversity of being on the road, even with the significance of a postseason series and winner advancing to the ALCS.

The message is the Yankees need to show more conviction with their at-bats, Aaron Judge needs to finally make an impact with that long awaited heroic postseason hit. And Giancarlo Stanton needs to have the postseason magic of last October that helped the Yankees to the World Series.

And the Yankees need to pitch and do it well. They have 18-game winner Carlos Rodón on the mound Tuesday night for Game 3 and a bullpen that needs to stop the ferocious batting machine of a lineup the Blue Jays have displayed in the first two games of this series. Rodón can be the stopper, so can Judge and a Yankees team that has not displayed the home run power that led baseball by a wide margin.

“We approach it like we have really all season, but even more specifically, the last six to eight weeks where we feel like we’ve been playing with a lot on the line every single day,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Monday as the Yankees opted to not workout after a flight back to New York from Toronto.

“We’ll go into our hitters’ meeting, and it’s about win today, period, and not getting ahead of that and even keeping it smaller than that. It’s about going up and trying to win every pitch. Keep it small. Keep it simple and know that you go out and win a ballgame tomorrow, that’s as far as you go. That’s how we’ll look at it, and I know that’s how our guys will be.”

But to stop the Blue Jays who make contact at the plate, it requires conviction on the mound. Yankees ace Max Fried was not an ace Sunday up in Toronto. The Blue Jays scored 22 of the first 23 runs in the first two games. The Yankees could not overcome but gave an effort after trailing 12-0 in an eventual second game 13-7 loss, partly attributed to a Blue Jays bullpen that is their one weak spot.

Regardless, the Yankees are fighting an obstacle to advance. If they take this to a Game 5 up in Toronto, they are 1-8 at Rogers Centre. Percentages say odds are stacked against New York, though this is baseball and anything is possible. Just ask Boone, who always believes in his players and how weird baseball can be at times.

“There’s been a lot of weird things that have happened in baseball this year,” he said. “This would not be the weirdest, us rallying.”

Not impossible but difficult because the Yankees have not been able to find an answer to the Blue Jays who they tied for the AL East division lead that wiped out home field advantage. And they oppose Blue Jays righty Shane Bieber in hopes to force a Game 4 while looking to rookie Cam Schlittler to extend it to Game 5, who became a phenom that clinched a Wild Card Series win last week against the Red Sox at home.

“He’s been obviously one of our horses this year,” Boone said about Rodón. “He’s had a great year, and any time we give him the ball, we feel like we have an excellent chance to win. That will be the same tomorrow. He’ll be ready to roll and hopefully get us off to a good start.”

Regarding Bieber, Boone said, “We’re going up against Shane Bieber. That’s how I’m going to formulate the lineup. Shane’s been a reverse this year, been kind of both throughout his career, more of a neutral guy. Then you also have some consideration to what they have in the bullpen, how you space things out a little bit. It starts with the opposing starter.”

That means scoring and often, using the confines of Yankees Stadium to hit the home run ball. It won’t be easy but it can be done overcoming an 0-2 hole. Remember the Yankees also saw the Red Sox at one time overcome an 0-3 deficit in the ALCS, something fans and baseball will never forget in a best four-of-seven series.

The players are ready, and don’t fault a boisterous clubhouse celebration last week in the Bronx after the series win over the Red Sox. The Yankees had a reason to celebrate defeating their rivals in the postseason and breaking a skid that haunted them and their fans.

And don’t blame Boone with the percentages, remember baseball is analytical and the Yankees perhaps too much dependent on the numbers.

They need to calm down Vladimir Guerrero Jr. who hit a first-inning home run in Game 1 and a grand slam in Game 2 off Will Warren who followed Fried and his ineffective 3.0 innings and seven-earned runs. Guerrero can be a quick game changer as the entire Blue Jays lineup is potent and hits with conviction.

“He kind of impacts the game on that side of the ball.,” Boone said about Guerrero. “You don’t think of him necessarily as a speed guy, and yet he’ll leg out infield hits. He’ll press you on the bases. He’ll be super aggressive, sometimes ever over aggressive, he’ll give you something out there.”

Again, it’s not just Guerrero but the entire lineup that manager John Schneider puts on the field for the Blue Jays.

Even a comeback player candidate of the year George Springer who is a postseason home run hitter and loves the confines of Yankee Stadium.

Not impossible but an obstacle of facing the odds. The Yankees could come home and win Game 3 tomorrow night and make this a 2-1 series. Then again they have faced two elimination games in the postseason and a similar deficit against Oakland in 2001 that will always be remembered with that Derek Jeter flip play.

But that was another era of Yankees baseball. They don’t have Jeter, Posada, Bernie Williams, Andy Pettitte, or unanimous Hall of Famer Mariano Rovera as the closer.

These are the 2025 Yankees, a team history of always going to the postseason. But a recent history of falling short of the big prize and winning a World Series they have not won since 2009.

Rich Mancuso is a senior writer and columnist at LatinoSports.com – X: @Ring786, Facebook.com/Rich Mancuso

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