Ace’s return to form squandered
Gausman pitches five solid innings in series finale but Yankees light up relievers in the ninth
That sigh of relief came like a gale force wind for everybody eyeballing Kevin Gausman. Ahoy, Gausman of old.
If pushed out by a ninth-inning squall that erupted around reliever Erik Swanson and capsized the Blue Jays.
There was a home-run tempest in between for Daulton Varsho — the second two-bomb game of his career — though it ultimately mattered for naught as Toronto went down hard to the Yankees, a tworun lead sunk by four unanswered runs and 6-4 loss on Wednesday.
Yes, it was a dark and stormy afternoon for the Jays inside the Rogers Centre. We’ll stop with the weather and mariner analogies now.
But let’s take a closer look at the end of the equation, with manager John Schneider summoning Swanson while the Jays still had a decent grasp on a 4-2 lead, after Génesis Cabrera came out of the bullpen to put up two solid innings, a solo four-bagger to Juan Soto notwithstanding.
Head-scratching was why Schneider would call upon Swanson, who just joined the parent team earlier this week, following a couple of rehab appearances in Buffalo, where he never made it out of one inning on either occasion. Or, for that matter, why Swanson should have been restored to the Jays so quickly from Triple A after his spring training was upended by forearm tightness.
What’s the rush?
In any event, Schneider bypassed Bowden Francis as a go-to arm in that situation and opted for Swanson, who in his 2024 debut hung a 1-1 splitter to leadoff Giancarlo Stanton for a slam-bang-thankyou-wham that travelled 437 feet into the second deck. Damaging but not fatal. Except Swanson then surrendered a single and a double before giving way to Tim Mayza.
That didn’t work out either as New York tagged on two more runs and closer Clay Holmes held off Toronto in the bottom of the ninth. Swanson ate the loss.
Pretty much everybody wondered why Schneider hadn’t turned to the solidly reliable Chad Green instead of Swanson. Even New York manager Aaron Boone was befuddled, though more so that Mayza was left in to face Aaron Judge, who hit a two-run single.
“I saw Francis up,” Boone said. “But also not a situation that Francis has really been in either … Obviously they were a little short down there.”
Schneider explained after the game.
“It lined up how we wanted, yeah. Green, no … was not an option today. He had some shoulder soreness after his last outing.”
There will be treatment and a day off Thursday before the team heads to San Diego, so nothing too concerning about Green, who has pitched a lot and exceedingly well out of a bullpen that had been missing both Swanson and closer Jordan Romano. Neither Romano nor Yimi Garcia, who has been outstanding, were available Wednesday.
So, the Jays didn’t enjoy a sweep of the division-rival Yankees. But they have won their third series of the young season and schlep back on the road with a 6-3 record from their opening homestand. The glass is maybe two-thirds full, in the wake of a fairly awful 10-game road trip to begin the season.
Most uplifting, and anxiety-soothing, was the acquittal of Gausman, who had been off to a miserable 2024 through three starts, including a mess of 1 1/3 innings against these same Yankees in the Bronx on April 6, smacked around for six runs. He allowed another six runs on 10 hits in a loss to Colorado but there were indications Gausman’s velocity was ticking back up even though his location remained screwy.
Wednesday’s outing seemed to auger the end of that: one run on four hits in five innings, maxing out at 101 pitches, 61 for strikes. Gausman looked more like his Cy Young finalist self from a year ago, using a fastball that touched 98 m.p.h. to set up his devastating swing-andmiss splitter.
“Really just the mentality, more of an attack mode, being more aggressive at guys,“he said. “Obviously throwing more strikes. I know I walked three guys but I was still attacking the zone really the whole game.”
Nor was he ever strung out about the velocity that had lost some three miles per hour as he got a late start out of the spring bivouacs because of shoulder fatigue.
“Some guys, if they throw a pitch that’s 88, it really can get in their head. Whether I’m throwing 88 or 98, it all feels the same to me.”
It was a red-letter day on an ultimately blue afternoon for Varsho, with his third and fourth dingers of the season, flashing the power that racked up 27 home runs in 2022, pre-Jays days. He hit his first homer off a left-hander since September 2022.
“Honestly, it was just having good talks with my teammates,” said Varsho, explaining how the likes of George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette had dived into analysis of his swing path on a recent flight.
“Everybody was talking to me, trying to help me out. It was cool.”
From cool to sizzling.