1. The Yankees led the Blue Jays 1-0 after another leadoff home run from Paul Goldschmidt. Then they trailed 3-1 after Ernie Clement and his .694 OPS hit a three-run home run. They tied the game up at 3, only to then trail once again after George Springer and his .566 OPS hit a home run. The Yankees were looking at a third-straight loss after being unable to handle the struggling Blue Jays and their struggling offense. The Yankees were getting beat by the Blue Jays the way they got beat by them throughout last season.
2. Trailing 5-3 with two outs and no one on and seven outs away from another defeat, Aaron Judge singled off Yariel Rodriguez and Cody Bellinger followed with a two-run home run off the top of the wall in right-center. After hitting three balls off the top of walls recently for doubles, Bellinger finally got a friendly bounce on one. Tie game.
Trent Grisham worked a pinch-hit walk and then Jazz Chisholm did something I forgot he was capable of and hit an opposite-field home run, a two-run shot off the left-field foul pole. Four two-out runs and a pair of two-run home runs had the Yankees in front 7-5.
3. After a scoreless eighth, a bad loss was on the verge of becoming a good win if David Bednar could get three outs before allowing two runs, a day after he couldn’t get three outs before allowing three runs. I wouldn’t have gone to Bednar on Monday. After allowing a run on 21 pitches on Friday and three runs on 23 pitches on Sunday, there is no way I would have called on Bednar to close out the Blue Jays. But Aaron Boone did, and the decision nearly cost the Yankees the game.
4. Bednar walked Clement and then gave up a double to Jesus Sanchez to make it 7-6. The tying run was in scoring position and Bednar had already thrown 13 pitches without recording an out. Brent Headrick (who I would have used in the ninth) immediately began throwing with intense urgency.
Bednar bounced back to strike out catcher Brandon Valenzuela and then walked pinch hitter Yohendrick Pinango to load the bases and turn the lineup over. Bednar had thrown 24 pitches and gotten just one out and with the tying run on second and the go-ahead run on first, the Blue Jays had Springer due up and Guerrero Jr. on deck.
5. The best-case scenario was the Blue Jays would tie the game, the Yankees would go down in order with the bottom of the lineup due up in the ninth and then hopefully win it with the top of the order in the 10th. I didn’t think there was a chance Bednar was getting out of the jam given his recent workload, his pitch count, fatigue and who was up.
Bednar fell behind Springer 3-0 and my hypothetical best-case scenario seemed impossible. Bednar’s first two pitches to Springer were low and away and the 2-0 pitch missed by a mile. I figured Bednar was either going to walk in the tying run or groove one for Springer to hit off the Poland Spring sign on the facing of the second deck in left field. Bednar threw Springer a 3-0 splitter at the very bottom of the zone, and Springer, looking to do damage, swung through it. Bednar came back with another splitter on the same plane for another swinging strike and then a third splitter on that same plane for a third straight swing-and-miss. Two outs, miraculously.
6. Guerrero Jr. walked to the plate and after picking up his second extra-base hit since April 28 and with as many home runs on the season as Austin Wells, I started to have nightmarish flashbacks from the ALDS. If you believe in due, no one would be more due than Guerrero Jr. facing an exhausted Bednar in the Stadium that has become his the way the old Yankee Stadium was David Ortiz’s. But instead of humiliating the Yankees like he did last October, Guerrero Jr. got an elevated splitter on 3-2 and did nothing with it, hitting a ground ball to second for the final out of the game.
7. “It’s not gonna happen again,” Bednar said he told himself when he fell behind Springer 3-0, not allowing himself to blow a second straight game.
“There a way out of every situation,” Bednar said.
Too many times this year the Yankees’ bullpen has been unable to find their way out of situations. It’s like they have been trapped in a mirror maze that doesn’t actually have an exit. The bullpen was rocked on the 2-7 road trip and Bednar was the worst of all the relievers during that stretch, allowing 11 baserunners, six earned runs and two game-changing home runs in 5 2/3 innings.
8. “Man, that was awesome,” Ryan Weathers said of Bednar bouncing back to retire Springer after falling behind 3-0.
The reason Bednar was needed in the game and the offense’s seven runs were nearly not enough was because Weathers wasn’t any good in what was easily his worst start of the season. He gave up five earned runs and wasn’t able to give the Yankees length (5 1/3 innings) at a time when they desperately need it. It’s been a crazy few weeks for Weathers with his paternity leave then his illness then getting pushed back a day from Sunday to Monday, so hopefully the next time through the rotation is more of a normal setting and routine for him.
9. It will be Will Warren against Dylan Cease on Tuesday night. Both righties are having great years, but Cease is having an All-Star season with a 2.41 ERA and a league-leading 75 strikeouts. Cease has had three games with double-digit strikeouts this season.
Cease pitched against the Yankees on May 7 last season when he was with the Padres. He took a no-hitter into the seventh inning in that game in what was an eventual 4-3 Yankees win in 10 innings. At the time, Cease was struggling mightily and still went into Yankee Stadium and threw 6 1/3 one-hit innings with nine strikeouts. Right now, Cease is pitching the best he has in his career, so yeah, I’m worried about Tuesday’s game.
10. On a non-game note, Gio Urshela announced his retirement from baseball. Urshela spent three years with the Yankees (2019-2021) and they were easily his three best seasons in the majors. Urshela hit .292/.335/.480 with the Yankees and .270/.314/.407 for his career. Urshela was part of The Replacement Yankees of 2019 (after Miguel Andujar got injured diving back to third base on a pickoff attempt at the start of the season), the Covid Yankees of 2020 and then the Disappointing Yankees of 2021.
Urshela was one of only two Yankees (DJ LeMahieu was the other) to hit (.828 OPS) during the 2019 ALCS loss to the Astros. In the crushing Game 6 loss, he walked in his first plate appearance, homered in his second, singled in his third and singled to lead off the ninth. He was on base when LeMahieu hit the game-tying home run in the ninth that is now just a wasted footnote in Yankees history like Alfonso Soriano’s go-ahead home run in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.
The Yankees traded Urshela way before 2022. The wanted to upgrade third base, so they took on the $51.5 million owed to Josh Donaldson.
“We appreciate what Gio has done,” Brian Cashman said at the time, “but he’s not Josh Donaldson.”
Over the next two years, Urshela hit .290/.335/.413. Donaldson hit .204/.293/.386, was released midseason by the Yankees and then paid $8 million by the Yankees in 2023 to not play baseball.
Last modified: May 19, 2026
