New York (AFP) – The Toronto Blue Jays knocked the New York Yankees out of the Major League Baseball playoffs on Wednesday with a 5-2 victory at Yankee Stadium. Toronto won the best-of-five American League division series 3-1 to advance to the American League Championship Series for the first time since 2016. The triumph comes after Toronto pipped the Yankees for the American League East division title on a tiebreaker after both teams amassed 94 wins.
The Yankees, owners of 27 World Series titles, fell to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the championship series last year and haven’t lifted the title since 2009. “The ending’s the worst, right?” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Especially when you know you have a really good group and a group of guys that really came together so well at the right time, the final couple months. It’s a team that played for one another, did a lot of really good things, and we got beat here. Credit to the Blue Jays and the year they’ve had. They beat us this series, simple as that. It doesn’t make it any easier.”
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Yankees superstar Aaron Judge had come through on Tuesday as New York fended off elimination with a come-from-behind victory in game three. He was two-for-four at the plate on Wednesday with one run batted in as the Yankees mustered just six hits against eight Blue Jays pitchers, finishing one for six with runners in scoring position and stranding 10 men on base.
Boone said the Blue Jays’ decision to make it a bullpen game, rather than relying on a standout starting pitcher, made it harder. “It can be really effective,” he said of the strategy. “Usually you build the lineup to go face their starting pitcher. They’re bringing in people to face your lineup, so you’re getting guys, and they have obviously a number of talented guys that pitched effectively and were able to hold us down enough. When we did have some opportunities, were able to thwart it enough. Just obviously not our night.”
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