At one point on Tuesday night, it did look as though the Toronto Blue Jays were well on their way to advancing to the ALCS, making quick work of the New York Yankees in their ALDS matchup. They already put six runs on the board and chased Carlos Rodon out of the game after just 2.1 innings, taking a 6-1 lead heading into the third inning.
But from that point forward, the Blue Jays met disaster in the form of Aaron Judge, who hit a three-run home run to tie the game in the fourth inning and putting momentum squarely in New York's side en route to an eventual 9-6 loss for Toronto.
Make no mistake about it, the Blue Jays are still in the driver's seat. But that is not an excuse for them to get complacent — not at all. Judge and the Yankees have shown in the past that they are very capable of mounting huge comebacks after all. And with Judge having such a great rhythm from the plate at the moment, the Blue Jays may have to rely on forces beyond their control to slow him down. Manager John Schneider certainly is.
“Hopefully he gets a bad night's sleep and has some bad food tonight or something like that. Give him credit, man, that was a ridiculous swing,” Schneider said, per Keegan Matheson of MLB.com.
Indeed, that was a ridiculous swing. There aren't too many players in MLB right now who can get to Louis Varland's near-100 mph fastball in on the hands and keep it fair down the left-field line. But the Yankees star did, and the Blue Jays simply could not recover from that point forward in Game 3.
If Game 4 was in Toronto, Schneider's (joking) wishes would have a greater chance of coming true. But with Game 4 being at Yankee Stadium, Judge is going to eat the cleanest food and sleep in the tidiest bed in all of New York leading up to that pivotal contest.
Blue Jays' offense goes AWOL as Yankees crowd goes wild
The Blue Jays did a good enough job to chase Rodon out of the game early and put the Yankees' bullpen, which has been shaky in the past, to the test.
Alas, the Yankees bullpen proceeded to shut out the Blue Jays for 6.2 innings. Even Devin Williams got in on the act.
The Blue Jays, however, are still leading the series and can take care of the Yankees for good this year if they win Game 4 of their ALDS clash, which will be later tonight at 7:08 PM E.T.
