The Blue Jays were up five runs and on their way to a three-game sweep of the New York Yankees and their first trip to the AL Championship Series in nine years.
And then it slipped out of their gloves.
A pair of critical errors by Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Addison Barger revived the Yankees, who then rode home runs by Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. off Louis Varland to a 9-6 victory Tuesday night.
Instead of preparing to host Seattle or Detroit at Rogers Centre this weekend, the Blue Jays’ lead in the best-of-five series was cut to 2-1 and they now must focus on Game 4 against New York on Wednesday night.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. did his best to seal the deal for the Blue Jays, hitting a two-run, first-inning homer off Carlos Rodón, but it wasn’t enough.
Kiner-Falefa, a former Gold Glove winner, allowed a two-out grounder in the bottom half to kick off the heel of his glove. The ball bounced off his chest and fell to the dirt, and Kiner-Falefa inadvertently kicked it as Rice reached first. Giancarlo Stanton followed with an RBI single that cut Jays’ the lead in half.
With the Blue Jays ahead 6-3 in the fourth, Austin Wells lofted a pop-up to left. Third baseman Addison Barger, who had entered as a pinch hitter in the third, settled under the ball only for the wind to blow it toward the seats. It hit off his glove and bounced into foul territory as Wells reached second.
Reliever Varland got ahead of Judge 0-2, then threw a 99.7 mph fastball that the two-time AL MVP drove high down the left-field line. Varland craned his neck to watch the ball clang off the foul pole and Judge made a rare bat flip as his three-run homer tied the game 6-6.
Then in the fifth, Varland delivered a 99.4 mph fastball low and inside for Chisholm, rarely a good pitch to a left-handed hitter in Yankee Stadium. Varland crouched and bowed his head even before Chisholm’s homer bounced out of the second deck to give the Yankees the lead, 7-6.
Anthony Santander, in an image fitting of Toronto’s night, was prone in right, face in the grass, after he failed to come up with a backhand catch on Cody Bellinger’s liner in the sixth, which bounded to the warning track for a double.
