Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Matt Chapman (26) celebrates with teammates after scoring on a solo home run during the fourth inning against the New York Yankees, in Toronto on Sept. 28.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
The Toronto Blue Jays snapped a two-day scoring drought and finally got going at the plate in a 6-0 Thursday night victory over the New York Yankees, increasing their odds at a postseason berth.
Chris Bassitt reached a big milestone on the mound, while Daulton Varsho, Matt Chapman and Brandon Belt each homered to help the Jays avoid a sweep by the Yankees, a team that has already been eliminated from playoff contention.
After going runless and languishing at the plate in the first two games of the set against New York, the Jays crushed 13 hits and got a stellar outing from the starter Bassitt, who reached the rare single-season feat of 200 innings pitched on Thursday. The win keeps Toronto in good position to secure a wild card in the final weekend of the regular season.
The Jays (88-71) currently hold the second wild-card spot in the American League, with three games left to play, all at home against the Tampa Bay Rays, Friday through Sunday. With their latest win, the Jays reduced their magic number to clinch an AL wild-card spot to two. That number held after the Seattle Mariners (86-73) walked off in the ninth inning later Thursday night to beat the Texas Rangers (89-70).
The Jays had mustered a combined five hits and no runs the previous past two nights. They’d faced great pitchers – Michael King, and American league Cy Young favourite Gerrit Cole on Wednesday, who closed his season by tossing a superb two-hit shutout. It had fans worried that perhaps the Jays couldn’t hit elite pitching – the calibre they’ll face if they want to make a run in October.
With their offence stalled, the Jays needed some kind of spark. So manager John Schneider shuffled the Jays batting order Thursday. He moved his top hitter, all-star shortstop Bo Bichette, into the cleanup spot – the 11th Blue Jay to hit there this season. Schneider shifted designated hitter Belt up to the two hole, Bichette’s usual spot in the order. He also bumped third baseman Chapman, who had been struggling at the plate, into the No. 8 spot.
In the early innings, the impact wasn’t immediately apparent. Bichette struck out in his first at-bat. So did Chapman, leaving two runners on base.
But then the Jays started to heat up.
Varsho’s solo shot into right centre in the third inning jump-started the scoring.
Chapman broke out of a hitting slump by crushing a solo homer into down the right-field line in the fourth. He went 1-for-4 at the plate on the evening.
As for Bichette, he was 2-for-4 on the night, hitting two singles.
Bichette stole second base on the second of those singles, and Cavan Biggio singled to bring him home for Toronto’s third run.
Three more runs came in for the Jays when Belt crushed his long ball over the right-field wall in the sixth inning.
“There’s not a lot of panic in this locker room,” said Belt of the team’s Thursday turnaround following the struggles of the previous two days. “We keep a level head and we go out there and make sure we take care of business the next night.”
Bassitt came through for the Jays when they really needed a win -- pitching into the eighth inning, allowing no runs on five hits. It was the sixth time this season that the right-hander pitched more than seven innings and allowed no runs, tied for most in Major League Baseball.
The Jays’ 34-year-old right-hander had 12 strikeouts Thursday – his last of the evening versus superstar Aaron Judge. Bassitt earned one of the loudest ovations of Toronto’s season, when he left the game with 200 innings pitched. Bassitt is just the fourth pitcher to eclipse 200 innings this season, joining the Yankees’ Cole, San Francisco’s Logan Webb, and Arizona’s Zac Gallen. Bassitt concludes the regular season with a 16-8 record and a 3.60 ERA.
“It’s the benchmark for elite pitchers, 200 innings” said Bassitt, acknowledging that he’d come close in previous seasons, reaching 160 and 180 innings pitched. “To get to 200 innings, you have to have so many people to trust you…to have this organization believe in me like they do, it means the world to me.”
An announced crowd of 36,657 watched inside Rogers Centre on Thursday.
Toronto would win a tiebreaker with Houston, but lose one with Seattle or Texas. The only three-way tiebreaker in which the Jays get through would be with Houston and Seattle. If the four teams all end up with 89 wins, the Jays would be the odd team out in that four-way tiebreaker.
Postseason play begins Tuesday.