The Blue Jays-Yankees series was good for baseball

The Blue Jays struck out just 24 times across the four games, compared to New York’s 37. Their supporting cast had a far better series than the Yankees’, with the likes of Ben Rice, Trent Grisham, Jazz Chisholm Jr., and Cody Bellinger combining to go just 9-for-58.

Blue Jays fans knew of the low strikeout-high contact approach, a stellar supporting cast, and a “parts are bigger than the whole” mentality, but now, everyone got to see it.

While the unsung hero stories are important, the best part of this series was that, on the biggest stage, we saw a pair of baseball’s best go shot for shot, especially on Tuesday night. In an era where criticism will quickly find those who are making the most money and aren’t putting the team on their back, this series was an exception.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Aaron Judge’s track records of playoff performance were spotlighted before the series began. Guerrero had just three hits in 22 at-bats, along with a lacklustre base running error in the 2023 Wild Card series against the Twins. Judge, on the other hand, was just a .205 career hitter in playoff games entering the playoffs, and the crucial fielding error he made in last year’s World Series still scars the minds of Yankees fans to this day.

Guerrero looked incredibly comfortable, as if he had done this before. He recorded nine hits in 17 at-bats, three home runs, nine RBIs, and just one strikeout. He became the first player in MLB history to record nine hits and nine RBIs through the first four games of any playoff series. While he has the rest of these playoffs and 14 more years to create legacy moments of his own, his grand slam in the second game of the series might stay at the forefront of those moments until he’s done in Toronto. The sound off the bat, the bat flip, the camera shots of both the Blue Jays and Yankees dugouts – it had Guerrero’s name all over it.

Judge also rewrote part of his playoff narrative, going 9-for-15 with two doubles, six RBIs, and a loud home run off the left field foul pole that sent Yankee Stadium into a frenzy, and gave fans hope that maybe this series was far from over.

Judge and Guerrero both showed up and showed out, and with both players still signed with these teams for many more years to come, this rivalry will stay juiced up for the foreseeable future. Regardless of the outcome and regardless of it being the first Division Series to finish, this Blue Jays-Yankees series was incredible for baseball.