The Blue Jays sailed smoothly through the first five innings of their game against the Yankees on Tuesday. In fact, New York was hitless in the first five frames thanks to a strong effort from Toronto starter Yusei Kikuchi.
However, once the sixth inning came around, things got difficult for the Blue Jays. Toronto entered the sixth inning leading 3-0. They exited the inning tied 3-all and found themselves without one of their relief pitchers, their pitching coach and eventually, their manager as a result of a trio of ejections.
What happened? The drama began, in earnest, when Kikuchi exited the game with runners on the corners and one out. DJ LeMahieu had broken up his no-hitter a few batters earlier, so Kikuchi came out of the game while reliever Yimi Garcia took the hill.
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The first batter that Garcia faced was Giancarlo Stanton. The Yankees slugger launched a fly ball deep to right field and saw it sneak over the short porch. The hit would have been a home run in just two MLB ballparks, but Yankee Stadium was one of them.
.@Giancarlo818 finds the short porch! pic.twitter.com/9Npvlysgkt
— MLB (@MLB) May 11, 2022
With the game now tied, Josh Donaldson came to the plate next. On the second pitch of his at-bat, Garcia hit him square on the elbow. That prompted boos from the New York crowd and a reaction from the Yankees' dugout, who believed that Garcia had purposely thrown at Donaldson in wake of Stanton's game-tying homer.
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The umpires agreed. After a brief discussion, Garcia was ejected without a warning being issued to either team. Toronto pitching coach Pete Walker was also tossed while arguing the call, and Garcia had to be separated from umpire Alfonzo Marquez.
Aaron Judge was ready to pounce after Donaldson got hit and the Blue Jays pitcher and pitching coach get ejected pic.twitter.com/IXKHBAG6T0
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) May 11, 2022
Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo was involved in the dispute, too. However, he wasn't thrown out ... until the following inning when he argued the Yankees should have been issued a warning after pitcher Jonathan Loiasiga threw an inside pitch to Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette.
“I got thrown out because I’m not supposed to argue warnings,” Montoyo explained after the game, via ESPN.
The reason for Montoyo's ejection was obvious, but what led Marquez to throw Garcia out without warning? Simply put, Marquez believed Garcia hit Donaldson intentionally because of the home run and an incident between Donaldson and Blue Jays catcher Tyler Heineman earlier in the game.
“Earlier in the game there were some words exchanged between Donaldson and Toronto’s catcher (Heineman), so that definitely played into it. There were pretty strong words," Marquez told a pool reporter. “Then you have a game-tying home run and the second pitch, which we deemed intentional, which was the reason for the ejection. All that really played into it."
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Strangely enough, Donaldson actually didn't seem too bothered after being hit.
"In my heart of hearts, I don’t think that it was (intentional)," Donaldson said of being drilled, per USA TODAY. However, he added, "it wasn’t a good look."
The Blue Jays fought back and eventually took a 5-3 lead into the ninth inning. However, closer Jordan Romano couldn't secure the save, and Aaron Judge hit a walk-off three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning. It marked the first walk-off homer in his 600 career games played.
And Judge credited the sixth inning with giving him the spark needed to drive one out of the park.
“I think when Josh got hit, I think that kind of locked all of us in, said OK, it’s go time. Especially me, same thing. It kind of got me going a little bit,” Judge said. “When something like that happens it’s like, OK, we’ve got to go out there and win this one.”
