Yankees pushed to brink again after another blistering Blue Jays beatdown

TORONTO — The Yankees are in deep split.

The only thing resembling a real competition on the field Sunday at Rogers Centre was which side of the Yankees could be humiliated more: their hitters, who were no-hit for 5 ¹/₃ innings by rookie Trey Yesavage, or their own pitching staff, which got tagged for 11 runs before recording an 11th out.

Yesavage, armed with a devastating splitter, dominated and made life miserable for the Yankees while Max Fried wilted on the other side of the starting pitcher matchup, resulting in an embarrassing 13-7 beatdown by the Blue Jays in Game 2 of the ALDS.

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The Yankees, assuming they were allowed back into the country, flew home with their season on life support, having been blown out by a combined score of 23-8 in the first two games of this best-of-five series. It was 22-1 before the Yankees finally started hitting against the Blue Jays bullpen late to make the final score a bit more respectable.

They will have to sit with that reality through Monday’s off-day before Carlos Rodón tries to save the season in Game 3 on Tuesday at Yankee Stadium.

“We’re a good team. Two games doesn’t mean anything,” Fried said. “We still have the ability to go out there and win three in a row and win the series. We still got to believe.”

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Even if they are somehow able to force a return trip for Game 5, though, the Yankees are 1-8 this year at Rogers Centre, which was an absolute madhouse Sunday with the sellout crowd of 44,764 having plenty to cheer for.

“I know we’ll show up ready to go expecting to win Tuesday night,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Obviously it feels like the world’s caving in around you, you lose two games like that in their building where it doesn’t go right. But all of a sudden you go out there and win a ballgame on Tuesday, the needle can change.”

The 22-year-old Yesavage, the No. 20 pick in the 2024 draft who made his MLB debut Sept. 15, turned in a performance for the ages. Throwing from a high arm slot with a splitter that continually brought the Yankees to their knees with ugly swings, Yesavage struck out 11 across 5 ¹/₃ no-hit innings while walking only one.

Blue Jays manager John Schneider got booed by his home crowd when he went to the mound to pull Yesavage to end his fourth career major league start.

“That was nasty stuff,” Boone said. “That split is unlike much you ever run into.”

Meanwhile, Fried could not record an out in the fourth inning, getting rocked for seven runs on eight hits across three-plus innings. The $218 million left-hander gave up a two-run homer to Ernie Clement in the second inning — which came after an Aaron Judge fielding error on Daulton Varsho’s double — three more runs in the third and then allowed the first two runners to reach in the fourth, at which point Boone yanked him.

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“They were on a lot of my pitches,” Fried said. “Credit to them, I didn’t get it done. It’s frustrating, especially coming out in a game like this and I needed to have a good one.”

Will Warren did not provide much relief, as Vladimir Guerrero Jr. took him deep for a monster grand slam that made it 9-0 and earned the Blue Jays star a curtain call — rivaling the one Yesavage would get a few innings later. Guerrero is 6-for-9 with two home runs and six RBIs in the series.

Warren went on to give up four home runs, two of them to Varsho, as the Yankees let him wear it into the eighth inning so they could preserve the rest of their bullpen.

Guerrero and Varsho combined to go 7-for-10 with three home runs, two doubles, eight RBIs and six runs.

“We’re going home, they’re coming to our place and it’s going to be different,” Warren said. “We’re a good team. We know what we have to do, handle business at home.”

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Yesavage’s outing was reminiscent of what Cam Schlittler did to the Red Sox in Game 3 of the wild-card series, and then some. The right-hander started the season in Low-A, and as he rifled through the Blue Jays system, he faced the Yankees Low-A, Double-A and Triple-A affiliates, all of whom had more success against him than the big league club did Sunday. His magic weapon was his splitter, which the Yankees swung at 16 times, whiffing at 11 of them.

“I think it just comes down to the funky release and playing it off that fastball line,” Ben Rice said. “It’s something we were a little unfamiliar with.”

Because of it, the Yankees are one loss away from packing their bags for the offseason.

“We’ve been here before,” Judge said. “Just go back to playing our baseball, put the pressure on them and anything can happen.”