The Blue Jays challenged anyone other than Aaron Judge to beat them.
Eventually, DJ LeMahieu did.
LeMahieu’s walk-off single capped the Yankees’ 4-3 win in 10 innings on Sunday, delivering a dramatic finish in the Bronx on a day Toronto issued three more intentional walks to Judge.
LeMahieu’s RBI single up the middle with the infield in scored Anthony Volpe from third, clinching the Yankees’ third consecutive series victory and giving them seven wins in their last eight games.
“It was a great win,” LeMahieu said.
Judge did not score Sunday despite the three intentional walks.
The first one came with Toronto up, 2-0, in the fifth inning, with two outs and Juan Soto on first. The Blue Jays trailed, 3-2, when they walked Judge again in the seventh with nobody out and the bases empty.
The third walk came in a more traditional situation, with runners on second and third and two outs in the eighth inning of a 3-3 game.
Those followed Toronto’s intentional walk of Judge in the second inning of Saturday’s game with two outs and nobody on. That marked the first time since 1972 that a player received an intentional walk with two outs and the bases empty within the first two innings of a game.
Judge leads all MLB hitters with 41 home runs, including the first-inning blasts he hit in Friday’s loss and Saturday’s win against Toronto.
“It sucks,” said Soto, who bats directly ahead of Judge. “You want him at the plate. I’m doing my best to put him up, and you see them pass him over. It just really makes me mad. I don’t like that. I want them to challenge him and see what he can really do. It is what it is. It’s part of the game. They’re trying to win, too, so you respect that.”
Soto went 2-for-3 with two walks Sunday. His seventh-inning solo home run gave the Yankees a brief 3-2 lead.
Soto also doubled in the eighth and, after sliding into second base, had his right hand checked out but remained in the game. It’s the same hand that’s bothered Soto for several weeks.
“I’m still grinding with my hand,” Soto said. “Definitely, it’s still sore to the touch, so when I slid hard into second base, I hit my hand with the base. Definitely, it hurt for a couple of seconds, and then it went away.”
Volpe also got looked at after a collision at first base but remained in the game and scored the winning run. Yankees manager Aaron Boone did not disclose what Volpe was checked for but said he thought he was OK.
It’s been a tough year for LeMahieu, who missed the first two months of the season after fracturing his foot in spring training and is now hitting .184. He’s played better of late, however, including with a six-RBI game on Wednesday in Philadelphia.
Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, meanwhile, turned in a solid performance Sunday in his first start since he was scratched with fatigue last week. Cole limited the Blue Jays to two runs on six hits over 5.2 innings, striking out four without issuing a walk.
Toronto jumped on Cole early, swinging early in counts and making hard contact to the tune of five hits through two innings.
But Cole got better as the outing went on. A double by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to lead off the third inning was the final hit allowed by Cole, who retired 10 of his last 11 batters. He punctuated his afternoon with a strikeout of Dalton Varsho on his 91st and final pitch.
Afterward, Cole said the extra days off were “definitely beneficial” and that he felt confident in his ability to bounce back after Sunday’s outing.
“I thought that [my] stuff got better as the game got going,” Cole said. “We were particularly better with our pitch selections and I felt pretty good stamina-wise. [Boone] cut me a little short, understandably. That was smart.”
It was the eighth start of the season for Cole, the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner, who missed the first three months of the year being diagnosed during spring training with elbow inflammation and edema.
Cole hadn’t pitched since July 24, when he surrendered three homers and six runs to the Mets. He was scratched Tuesday in Philadelphia with what the Yankees described as general body fatigue.
On Sunday, Cole lowered his ERA to 5.09 through eight starts.
The Yankees are off Monday, then continue a season-long nine-game home stand by kicking off a three-game series against the Angels on Tuesday night.
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