The Yankees’ efforts were rewarded twice on Saturday.
Ben Rice was sprinting and literally dropped the ball for the Blue Jays, which caused a painful experience.
Gleyber Torres — that’s right, Gleyber Torres — sprinted from first base to second base to avoid a potential double play.
Both Rice and Torres scored runs with home runs, which is desirable for a team that trains with a focus on effort level: If you hit the ball far enough, you can run as slowly as you want.
Manager Aaron Boone sent a message to the team on Friday by sending second baseman Torres to the bench after he singled on what should have been a double, but the Yankees responded by blasting three home runs, rolling around the bases and beating the Blue Jays 8-3 in front of 40,218 sweaty fans in the Bronx.
The Yankees (66-46) bounced back from a generally poor night, using strength over legs to win their sixth of seven games.
Powerful swings from Aaron Judge (his 41st home run of another phenomenal season), Trent Grisham (his 7th) and Anthony Volpe (his 11th) accounted for the first six of the eight runs, giving Carlos Rodon and the Yankees’ relief staff plenty of room for improvement.
Rodon gave up a solo home run to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the first inning, but Judge then gave the Yankees their first lead of the series, and they would not relinquish it.
The captain smashed a two-run homer into the visiting bullpen in left-center field, tying the franchise’s record for most homers in a single season (16), set by Babe Ruth in 1927. Judge has 50 games left to pass Ruth.
The Yankees faced no major drama in the remaining games as they took a break after a dramatic Friday.
The night before, Torres had been replaced in the third inning for not putting up a fight on a play that cost the Yankees a run.
The Yankees appeared on high alert Saturday, attacking at nearly every opportunity and allowing two close games to score.
In the top of the second inning, Rice threw a hopper ball to second baseman Spencer Horowitz, who dropped the ball, picked it up and threw it to first base, just a split second too late.
The rookie worked hard and reached base on an error, and Grisham’s hard hit to right field put a runner on base and gave the Yankees a three-run lead.
In the fifth inning, Torres found his feet and the lead grew to five runs.
After singled, Torres sprinted from first to second on a grounder to first by Jazz Chisholm Jr. Guerrero dropped the ball, stepped on the base and threw to second, where Torres narrowly dodged the tag.
Three pitches later, Volpe hit his fifth home run in his last 11 games, a tanking to left that was another example of the shortstop perhaps trying to pull the ball more often.
The Blue Jays managed to get two runs back in the sixth against Rodon and Jake Cousins, but couldn’t get any further.
The insurance came late in the seventh inning, when Volpe singled to left field to drive in Judge (who reached base in four of five at-bats, including an intentional walk with the bases loaded) and give the Tigers a four-run lead.
Austin Wells hit a timely hit in the eighth inning to extend the lead to five runs.
Not surprisingly, the Yankees won the game.
