TORONTO -- Kevin Gausman stared down Aaron Judge from the mound at Rogers Centre, wondering how he was going to get out of this mess of his own making.
The Blue Jays' ace cruised for much of his start in Toronto’s 10-1 ALDS Game 1 win over the Yankees, facing just one over the minimum through the first five innings.
But things quickly got out of hand in the sixth. Gausman allowed a leadoff double to Anthony Volpe and a single from nine-hole hitter Austin Wells before loading the bases when he walked Trent Grisham. He was facing a bases-loaded jam with the reigning AL MVP coming to the plate.
“It didn’t feel great, honestly,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “That’s not what you want to see.”
Everyone in Rogers Centre was holding their breath through the eight-pitch battle. Rightfully so. In his regular-season career, Judge has a .354 average with six home runs and a 1.284 OPS over 61 plate appearances against Gausman.
“It was kind of mano a mano at that moment,” Gausman said. “He’s one of the best hitters in the game. At that moment, you're like, ‘All right, it's me versus you. I'm going to give it everything I got.’ … In that moment, to be honest, I'm fine walking him. He can blow that game right open with one swing.”
Gausman battled Judge with his four-seam/splitter mix, getting to a full count after a splitter missed below the zone. And when Judge chased one final splitter well out of the zone for strike three, the crowd of 44,655 in Toronto let out deafening cheers.
“That's why he’s been in this game for a long time and had a lot of success,” Judge said of Gausman’s fastball/splitter combo. “This is his bread and butter.”
“That's a huge, huge strikeout obviously against someone who is going to be the MVP of the league, probably,” Schneider added. “You're kind of feeding off the emotion a little bit, too, to be honest with you.”
For all of Judge’s accomplishments, his recent struggles in the postseason are well-documented. Since 2019, Judge is slashing .202/.308/.381 with nine homers and 20 RBIs in 44 postseason games.
Judge, who may very well win his third career AL MVP Award next month, has hit .330 with a 1.057 OPS across 112 at-bats with the bases loaded in the regular season. In the postseason, he's now 0-for-2 with two strikeouts and two sac flies.
“I wouldn’t say I was over-anxious; if you saw the whole at-bat, I definitely took some tough pitches,” Judge said. “But in the end, I didn’t get the job done. That’s what it comes down to -- just not doing your job.”
It was the biggest moment during a game the Blue Jays eventually broke wide open with a four-run seventh and eighth en route to a rousing win.
After getting Ben Rice to pop out for the second out of the inning, Gausman walked off the mound to a standing ovation and thunderous applause before Schneider handed the ball to Louis Varland, who slammed the door shut with an electric strikeout of Giancarlo Stanton to end the frame.
Varland’s 100.7 mph fastball is the fastest strikeout pitch of his career and his second-fastest pitch overall. It’s also the fastest strikeout by a Blue Jays pitcher in the postseason in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008).
“With [Gausman’s] pitches being where they were in that inning, I wanted a little power against Stanton,” Schneider said of the decision to go to Varland. “I think with the confidence and conviction he's throwing with, you kind of just say, ‘All right, what do we need in this situation?’ I've said that so many times during the course of the year: ‘What's important right now?’ To me, that situation, you needed 100 versus a guy who's had a storied postseason career in Stanton.”
The sixth-inning performance by Gausman and Varland is arguably what kept the momentum on the Blue Jays’ side when it could have flipped quickly. Center fielder Daulton Varsho said everybody was “jacked” to get back in the dugout afterwards and add to their lead.
Neutralizing the two biggest threats in the Yankees’ lineup was the perfect way to do it.
“Aaron's the best hitter in the world,” said outfielder George Springer. “For Gaus right there, that's a huge pitch for us. For that to work out in our favor is huge. And then obviously, Stanton can do things that pretty much nobody else can do. And Louis right there, that's a big spot, and he gets him out. It was just a big inning for us, obviously, that could have spiraled into a bad one.”