TORONTO — A day into the season it became clear that one of the hardest jobs in Major League Baseball this year will be divided among whatever pitchers are facing the Yankees’ lineup.
On Thursday the duty fell to J.A. Happ and a host of relievers for the Toronto Blue Jays. The group expended 172 pitches and untold quantities of mental energy navigating through one of the most feared lineups in recent years.
With much of the American League looking on from afar to gauge the extent of the damage the Yankee lineup is capable of, the Blue Jays were unable to ease any of their concern. Giancarlo Stanton delivered the most damage, hitting two home runs and added a run-scoring double in his remarkable Yankee debut.
Gary Sanchez added a run-scoring double and Aaron Judge singled, doubled and scored a run. Even the leadoff batter, Brett Gardner, joined in with a home run as the Yankees rapped out 11 hits to beat the Blue Jays, 6-1, on opening day.
“It’s a tough lineup,” Happ said. “I don’t know what else I can say other than that.”
Before Happ had recorded two outs, Stanton drilled his first home run of the game on a two-seam fastball that cut over the plate. It scored Gardner, who had reached on an error.
Happ held the Yankees to four hits and three runs, two of them earned, and said he felt it went “fine.” But he threw too many pitches (96) to get through even the fifth inning, and the Yankees scored three more runs on the Blue Jays’ bullpen. Danny Barnes gave up Gardner’s homer and Tyler Clippard surrendered Stanton’s second.
Russell Martin, the veteran catcher whose job is to shepherd the Toronto pitchers through lineups like the Yankees, advocates an aggressive style. Intimidation cannot seep in.
“You can’t let the fear change your attitude toward how you approach the game,” Martin said. “You have to attack them, you have to be tough.”
Toughness was a theme touched on even before the game as the Blue Jays retired the No. 32 worn by Roy Halladay, one of the most revered and mentally tough pitchers of his generation.
Halladay, the former Blue Jay great, died Nov. 7 when the small aircraft he was piloting crashed off the Florida Coast. His number became only the second the Jays have retired, after Roberto Alomar’s No. 12.
It was a moving ceremony, attended by Halladay’s widow, two sons and a host of former teammates. His sons, Braden and Ryan, were invited to stand along the third base line with the Blue Jays players during pregame introductions.
In a video tribute, Halladay was praised for his competitiveness, which he often exhibited against the Yankees. It was the kind of challenge that Halladay, a Cy Young Award winner and six-time All-Star, cherished.
He pitched for 12 years in the A.L. East, from 1998 to 2009, and often faced some of the most feared hitters in baseball on the Yankees, from Jorge Posada and Derek Jeter to Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi.
But Halladay went 18-7 with a 2.98 earned-run average in a season’s worth of games against the Yankees in his career — 36 starts — and earned the admiration of teammates and opponents alike.
“He was unhittable,” said Yankees general manager Brian Cashman. “He had an incredible combination of power and sink.”
John Gibbons, the Blue Jays manager, said that managing Halladay was an easy task, “because you always expected him to go nine innings, and he usually did. The bigger the game, the better he pitched.”
Pitchers like Halladay, who also worked four years with the Philadelphia Phillies and threw a no-hitter in the 2010 playoffs, are rare, and it would not be fair to compare anyone on the current Blue Jays staff to Halladay, at least not yet.
But just as Halladay faced many great lineups, the current Blue Jays pitchers know they must somehow contend with these Yankees, a difficult task last year that has only become more difficult.
“It was tough to go through it before Stanton showed up,” Gibbons said, before adding, “You can get them out if you pitch them tough. But they can also burn you a time or two.”
The Blue Jays did get Stanton out twice, and Sanchez four times. Martin would not divulge their tactics, but after Thursday’s loss, he suggested the plan could change.
“I don’t want to give away everything that we’re going to try to do because they probably read the paper a little bit,” Martin said. “But, we’ve got a few tricks up our sleeve.”
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