NEW YORK — The Yankees kept running into the same wall all summer. Four times since Aaron Judge went down, they stacked four straight wins. Four times, the fifth would not come.
The number four became a quiet frustration. A team good enough to string together wins kept proving unable to turn a good week into a great one.
On Friday night in the Bronx, in front of 45,062, that pattern finally cracked. The breakthrough did not come from a healthy star. It came from a rookie who spent much of the year shuttling between Triple-A and the majors, and from an ace who won without his best stuff.
Spencer Jones homered and Cam Schlittler grinded through six innings as the Yankees beat the Blue Jays 3-1, their fifth straight win and their first five-game streak since May 24-29. It was the run they had failed to complete four separate times since Judge landed on the injured list, and it arrived at the best possible moment in the standings.
The win pushed the Yankees to 73-55 and, combined with Tampa Bay’s loss in Baltimore, moved them within three games of the first-place Rays in the AL East, the closest the two teams have been since Aug. 2. Six days earlier, after a loss in Toronto, the deficit had been 6.5 games.
Jones flips replay script Pete Alonso couldn’t
The decisive swing carried a strange echo. In the second inning of a scoreless game, with Trent Grisham aboard on a walk, Jones turned on an 89-mph cutter from Toronto starter Spencer Arrighetti and launched it high toward the right-field foul pole. He stood in the box and stared, unsure whether it was fair.
The 385-foot drive landed in the second deck. First base umpire Dan Iassogna signaled fair. Toronto challenged, and because none of the replay angles could capture the towering ball passing the pole, the call stood for a two-run homer and a 2-0 Yankees lead.
The irony was not lost on the home dugout. Two days earlier in Baltimore, the Yankees had watched Pete Alonso’s skyscraper get ruled foul and stay foul for the same reason: replay could not overturn what the cameras could not see. This time the call broke their way, and Boone smiled recalling the thought that crossed his mind.
“It’s our week for that,” Boone said.
Jones knew only that he had never hit a ball quite that high. It was his seventh homer of the season and his second in as many games, after he went deep in Baltimore on Thursday.
“That’s maybe the highest one I’ve ever hit,” said Jones, who has 86 home runs in his minor league career.
Schlittler wins ugly and matter more than dominance
Cam Schlittler did not have his command. He put runners on in four of his six innings, threw only 59 of 96 pitches for strikes and walked three. Toronto collected six hits and kept threatening. The Blue Jays still scored just once.
The lone run came in the fifth, when Brett Bateman doubled and scored on an Alejandro Kirk single. Schlittler stranded the rest, ending that inning on a double play and striking out tough outs with curveballs when he needed them. He finished six innings, one run, four strikeouts, and improved to 11-6 with a 2.16 ERA.
The performance spoke to something beyond his Cy Young numbers. Toronto went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position against him. On a night his stuff wavered, Schlittler refused to let the game tilt. Afterward, he turned to the division the Yankees are suddenly chasing down.
“It’s wide open. Feel like it was wide open last year,” Schlittler said. “We got a lot of opportunities to win the division. I think we still got a lot of opportunities to win the division this year.”
Brent Headrick, Paul Blackburn and David Bednar closed it with three scoreless innings, Bednar sealing his 30th save.
The 20-game oddity hiding inside winning streak
Here is the flaw the winning streak has not fixed. Friday marked the 20th consecutive game in which the Yankees failed to score in the first inning. The pattern repeated on cue: Amed Rosario and Ben Rice both reached in the bottom of the first, and George Lombard Jr. struck out to strand them.
It is a strange contradiction for a team winning at this rate. New York keeps spotting opponents the early innings, then finding just enough later. The offense stayed thin again Friday, going 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and leaving six on base. Toronto out-hit the Yankees 9-4.
That the Yankees won anyway is the point. They are 18-39 when scoring three runs or fewer this season, the best record in baseball in such games, and their 18 wins in them rank among the most in MLB. The pitching has made a thin offense sufficient, and Friday was more proof.
Jones’ hot streak sharpens looming Yankees roster squeeze
Jones is making the Yankees’ coming decision harder by the day. Since his July 26 recall, he is batting .234 with five home runs and 14 RBIs, all five homers coming in his last 21 games. His four-game hitting streak matched a career high, and Friday was the first time he had homered in back-to-back games. Boone has noticed the growth.
“He’s been adaptable,” Boone said. “The experience he’s gaining, I feel like it is very valuable, and he’s applying it well every day.”
The timing complicates things. Cody Bellinger began a rehab assignment Thursday and could be activated as soon as Sunday, forcing a corresponding move. For now, utilityman Max Schuemann, recalled Friday after Ryan McMahon landed on the injured list with a thumb sprain, appears likelier than Jones to be optioned. Judge, still out with a fractured rib, is also working back.
The five-game streak has changed the shape of the Yankees‘ season in under a week. A division race that looked to be slipping away is live again, the deficit halved from 6.5 games to three with 34 games left. The run has come without Judge and largely without a functioning top-to-bottom lineup, carried instead by run prevention and a rookie finding his footing.
The chance to keep climbing comes immediately. Toronto and the Yankees continue their series Saturday afternoon, with Ryan Weathers set to face Blue Jays ace and Cy Young contender Dylan Cease. New York will try for a sixth straight win, and a further dent in a division lead that no longer looks safe.
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
