The Yankees are unlikely to see Giancarlo Stanton again this season. There is still no publicly known timetable regarding Aaron Judge. For too long, the club’s offense has felt as if it is waiting for those game-changing, fence-clearing bats to rejoin and recharge the lineup.
Not Sunday, though, when the Yankees flexed their athleticism and speed, appeared to often make a concerted effort to take the right swing rather than the big swing, and later added to their lead with a few of those big swings.
Using small ball, big ball, 11 hits and a few productive outs, the Yankees put together a relative offensive explosion in an 8-3 victory over the Blue Jays that clinched the series in front of 41,802 in The Bronx.
Having won six of seven, the Yankees (74-56) remained three games behind the Rays in the division before welcoming the Astros for three games.
Carlos Rodón (four innings, two runs) was solid enough, and Paul Blackburn, Ryan Yarbrough and Brent Headrick (combined five innings of one-run ball on three hits) were typically excellent behind him.
But the Yankees’ pitching staff seems to excel every game, which means their offense merely needs to be competent to win games.
They exceeded that bar in the series finale through a variety of different means, such as:
— Scoring two runs in the second with terrific and youthful legs and some small ball. George Lombard Jr. shot a single through the right side before Spencer Jones — who is now a platoon right fielder, with Cody Bellinger activated — stroked a double to the gap in right-center, two fresh legs rounding the bases and Lombard sliding in safely for the first run.
With no outs, Jazz Chisholm Jr. got behind 1-2 and then cut down on his swing and pulled a ground ball to the right side, advancing Jones to third. Austin Wells’ double then scored the second run.
— After Toronto tied it in the fourth, the Yankees used athleticism, patience and clutch hits to go ahead in the sixth. Lombard reached on a swinging bunt before Jones smacked a single over shortstop Ernie Clement’s head. With first and second and no one out, the struggling Chisholm tried a bunt down the third-base line on which the pitcher and third baseman converged, and thus no one was covering third for a force out and Chisholm ended up with an infield single that loaded the bases without an out.
Wells and Jose Caballero couldn’t get the runs in, but Trent Grisham worked a walk for the go-ahead score before Ben Rice dropped a two-run single into right.
— Showing they can score in other ways, the American League leaders in home runs reminded that they have that ability too.
Chisholm, no longer moving a runner over or laying down a bunt, launched his first homer since Aug. 4, a two-run shot in the seventh, before Grisham clubbed his 18th of the season, which wound up in Monument Park in the eighth.
In his second outing off the injured list, the building-up-on-the-fly Rodón was brief.
The lefty gave up two runs in four innings in which he progressed to 76 pitches, of which just 42 were strikes. He was burned by a third-inning walk to No. 8 hitter Charles McAdoo, who went to third on a Myles Straw double and then scored on a Brett Bateman sacrifice fly.
And Rodón was burned by a potential double play that Lombard — in his third straight game with an error — could not convert. The young shortstop appeared to glimpse toward second base before gloving a hard grounder from Clement, the ball bounding out of his glove. Instead of a potential frame-ending turn, the Blue Jays had the bases loaded with one out. Daz Cameron’s sacrifice fly made it 2-2 before Rodón got McAdoo to ground out.
