Blue Jays continue 'beautiful dance' with Bronx shutout

NEW YORK -- Sooner or later, the Blue Jays’ road will go through New York again, and this weekend in the Bronx is their opportunity to shorten the drive.

Friday’s 4-0 win was quick, clean and tight, with Kevin Gausman suffocating the Yankees’ lineup for seven innings. Even with the score close, it felt like the Blue Jays were up by a dozen -- which is what Toronto has been on the other side of too often recently.

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In a matter of days, the floundering Blue Jays have rediscovered their best baseball, exposing the cracks in a Yankees team that’s now 4-13 in August. This could be a blip, leaving Toronto to slip back tomorrow into the same frustrations that the club has felt for weeks, or it could be the start of something bigger. That’s up to the Blue Jays.

“Baseball, to me, has always been such a beautiful dance,” said interim Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “You try to ride the highs and get out of the lows. Whenever anyone has a performance like [Ross] Stripling Wednesday, José [Berríos] yesterday or a big game like our offense had, you just hope it continues to carry over and do its thing. It wakes guys up. It’s about the next guy up, and we want to keep this rolling.”

A month ago, the Yankees were Goliath, running away with the American League East. They weren’t just beating teams, they were embarrassing them, and by July 10, they’d opened up a 16 1/2-game gap on the Blue Jays, marking Toronto’s biggest deficit of the season. Two wins into this four-game series, though, the Blue Jays find themselves just eight back in the division.

If they have another scorching finish in them, like Toronto’s 22-9 run in 2021 from Sept. 1 on, it’s not out of the question that the Blue Jays could stun the Yankees -- and the rest of baseball. For now, any realistic focus still needs to be on the Wild Card race. It’s far tighter, and far more crowded.

Friday’s win has the Blue Jays in the second AL Wild Card spot, just shy of the Mariners and one game ahead of the Rays for the third and final spot. The Twins, Orioles and White Sox are all in the mix, though, which keeps the spotlight hot.

“Baseball is hard enough as it is,” Schneider said. “When you’re in a bit of a funk, everyone seems to try doing a little too much. When you’re going good, you’re not really thinking about all of the things that could go wrong, you’re focused on everything that could go right.”

You’ve heard a hundred times now that momentum is only as good as the next day’s starting pitcher, and when that’s Gausman, you’ve got one hell of a wave to rise. Gausman looked as good as he has all season, holding New York scoreless over seven innings while striking out seven and allowing just five baserunners. At no point did the Yankees truly threaten.

Gausman’s ERA sits at 2.99, but he’s been even better than it suggests. The splitter king has been plagued by poor luck with balls in play -- comical, at times -- but has still managed to be one of baseball’s most effective starters in 2022. As the Blue Jays try to turn these three recent wins into something bigger, there’s confidence in a win coming every fifth day.

“It’s going to be a challenge,” said Gausman, who hasn't allowed a run on the road in 22 consecutive innings. “I think that urgency was kind of lacking at certain points during the season. Where we’re at now, we all know, with [44] games left, we’ve got to strap it on. We’ve got to go.”

Teoscar Hernández heard Gausman loud and clear. His two-run shot sailed 421 feet for his 18th homer of the season to give the Blue Jays some cushion. It wasn’t anything like Thursday’s nine-run outburst, but if the Blue Jays are going to make a run, they need to win in different ways.

“The team is playing pretty good right now,” Hernández said. “Everybody is getting everything together. We were going through it for a couple of weeks, really tough, on the road and at home. We just try to stay together, do our thing, go out there and fight every time.”

With a tough schedule waiting in parts of September, Toronto will need to continue stacking up wins in August, even with Yankees ace Gerrit Cole taking the mound Saturday (1:05 p.m. ET) opposite Blue Jays newcomer Mitch White. Any win over the Yankees is a fine dress rehearsal, though, if Toronto hopes to make it to the big dance.