TORONTO — At this point, it seems like Aaron Judge could hit a home run at Rogers Centre with his eyes closed.
A four-game set that began with allegations that Judge was peeking at his first-base coach to get some help before hitting his second home run on Monday ended with the Yankees’ captain delivering another towering blast on the way to a series victory.
Judge’s fourth home run of the series, a two-run shot in the first inning, staked the Yankees to an early lead before they hung on for dear life with a short bullpen to escape with a 4-2 win Thursday over the Blue Jays.
“I’m just trying to do my job,” Judge said when asked if he felt like he sent a message. “I was upset, but nothing I can do about that. I still gotta go out there and play.”
Across the four games, Judge went 6-for-14 with four home runs, a double (that was inches away from being a fifth home run Thursday), five walks and seven RBIs.
Aaron Judge belts a two-run homer in the first inning of the Yankees’ 4-2 win over the Blue Jays. Getty Images“MVPish,” manager Aaron Boone said.
Aaron Hicks’ RBI single in the top of the seventh inning extended the Yankees’ lead to 3-1, and it ultimately proved to be the winning run on a night when most of Boone’s high-leverage relievers — Michael King, Clay Holmes, Wandy Peralta and Jimmy Cordero — were unavailable.
Instead, after Nestor Cortes ran out of gas following a leadoff walk in the bottom of the seventh, the Yankees bullpen performed a high-wire act over the final three innings with the unlikely trio of Ryan Weber, Albert Abreu and Ron Marinaccio.
“We called that Nestor and the Funky Bunch tonight,” Boone said.
Nestor Cortes allowed just two runs in six-plus innings to improve to 4-2 on the season. APAfter taking three of four against the Blue Jays (25-19), the Yankees (26-20) have now won eight of their last 11 games, including five of eight against Toronto and Tampa Bay.
“I feel like we’re rolling now,” said Cortes, who had his best start in a month while giving up two runs over six-plus innings. “We’re playing really good baseball. The dugout’s coming alive. We’re battling, we’re pulling for each other. It does feel like we’re playing better baseball and it’s showing.”
Weber relieved Cortes in the seventh and loaded the bases with no outs, but limited the damage to just a sacrifice fly by pinch-hitter Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to get out of the jam with the Yankees clinging to a 3-2 lead.
Abreu came on for the eighth and retired the heart of the Blue Jays’ order on 16 pitches.
Anthony Volpe celebrates with Aaron Hicks after hitting a solo homer in the ninth inning of the Yankees’ victory. APAnd after Anthony Volpe added a solo home run in the top of the ninth for some much-needed breathing room, Marinaccio pitched the bottom of the inning and locked it down for his first career save.
“There’s been some bumps in the road so far, but it seems like we’ve been able to kind of get a little gritty and figure out a way to get some wins,” Marinaccio said.
Of course, the series did not end without some more banter between the two dugouts. In the fifth inning, TV cameras captured Boone shouting at Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker, who two nights earlier had been yelling at Yankees third-base coach Luis Rojas for not standing within the coaches’ box.
After Walker yelled at Rojas again on Thursday, Boone said, the manager appeared to shout, “You’re f–king crazy. Crazy. Sit the f–k down, Pete.”
And yet, despite all the tension that was packed into the four-game series, the Yankees were able to leave town with three more wins under their belt — perhaps fueled by a little extra motivation from Monday’s events that put Judge in the crosshairs.
“For us to win the first game and then cause so much drama that they’re focused on other things besides winning ballgames [was big],” Hicks said after his three-hit night. “In order for us to be able to compete to the best of our ability, we gotta focus on us and focus on winning and what we need to do to win games.”






