Boiling over: Blue Jays-Yanks rivalry heating up

TORONTO -- A baseball game between the Blue Jays and Yankees turned into a reality TV show on Tuesday night at Rogers Centre.

The Blue Jays lost, 6-3, but the score was a subplot. What played out over the three-hour pre-show and slightly longer game was another episode in what’s quickly becoming one of Major League Baseball’s best rivalries, and Aaron Judge is at the center of it all.

One day after the Blue Jays’ broadcast caught Aaron Judge glancing in the direction of his own dugout just before launching a home run -- which led to an explanation from Judge that the Blue Jays don’t appear to be buying -- the controversy spilled into a new game. Judge expressed his disappointment with the accusation before the game, while Blue Jays manager John Schneider -- after suggesting the Yankees’ base coaches were standing outside of their designated boxes on the field -- reiterated that it was “a little funny [Judge] was worrying about his dugout when he was in the batter’s box.”

The best revenge is living well and Judge answered with a bang, breaking an eighth-inning tie with a two-run shot that soared a projected 448 feet. It even shattered the tip of a maple leaf, which was part of the WestJet logo behind a fan area in center field. Even in reality TV, some moments seem too good not to be scripted.

The game was spilling over with drama well before the Blue Jays lost it, though. Never have so many people cared about coaches boxes at one time, and in the third inning, Toronto’s dugout -- particularly pitching coach Pete Walker -- and New York third-base coach Luis Rojas had a heated exchange about just that.

“Pete was, probably more playfully than anything, saying, ‘I’m watching you,'" Schneider said. "Rojas kind of took exception to it. It’s two competitive teams. You’re not pleased with the way everything has shaken out in the last 24 hours, right? It’s just people being competitive. Rojas responded how he did and we responded how we did.”

Then came a twist.

As Yankees starter Domingo Germán walked on the field for the fourth inning, the umpiring crew checked his hand. What they found, according to home-plate umpire James Hoye was “the stickiest hand I’ve ever felt.” Germán was ejected, adding another layer to the tensions that were already close to boiling over.

“It’s unfortunate that it happens for the sport, for the game,” Schneider said.

The Blue Jays’ manager felt his team could have done more in the middle innings after Germán was tossed, but he had one parting blow for the Yankees’ starter who is facing a 10-game suspension.

“As far as that,” Schneider said, “I’ll let Domingo worry about that the next 10 days.”

As the two sides continued to jaw, including Yankees manager Aaron Boone asking the umpires to relocate Toronto third-base coach Luis Rivera later that inning, Kevin Gausman was caught in the middle of it all. Just to reset here for a moment, there was still a baseball game going on in the middle of this.

Gausman was in the dugout for nearly 30 minutes waiting out the Germán ejection and a long inning that included another pitching change -- none of which is easy on a starter. He admitted it was “kind of annoying” to deal with, but as you’d expect from the Blue Jays’ most laid-back player, he didn’t fully know what was going on at the time and he didn’t care. Gausman was focused on his job, which demanded far more focus than usual Tuesday as he turned in seven innings of three-run ball (two earned) with 10 strikeouts.

“It’s two really good teams that like to jab back and forth with each other,” Gausman said. “There’s definitely a bit of a dislike, so that adds to the fuel. We’re trying to win a division and they won it last year. We’re trying to win baseball games.”

By now, the dust should be settled. If you’re the Blue Jays, you have to hope it is, because most of that dust has been blowing directly into their eyes.

What we’re seeing, though, is a rivalry that’s great and growing. Even with teams facing their division rivals less often in 2023 and beyond, the nature of the competitive AL East means that all of these games carry an incredible weight, even in the middle of May.

Despite all the controversy and drama, what matters is what the synopsis of this episode will say, which is that the Blue Jays have dropped the first two games of this pivotal series and need to steal back the next two.