TORONTO — The New York Yankees touched down in Canada early Friday with some bulletin board material ahead of their American League Division Series showdown against the Toronto Blue Jays.
“Contrary to some thoughts up here, we’re a really good team,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said in a news conference Friday.
Boone was referring to a pointed critique that Blue Jays television color analyst and former major leaguer Buck Martinez offered on the Yankees during a game between the Blue Jays and Houston Astros on Sept 9.
The Yankees had taken two of three games from the Blue Jays the previous weekend, but Martinez was unimpressed.
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“The Yankees, they’re not a good team,” Martinez said. “I don’t care what their record is.”
The Yankees went 5-8 against the Blue Jays in the regular season and just 1-6 in Toronto. The head-to-head series proved significant when both clubs finished tied atop the AL East with 94 wins, and the Blue Jays won the division because of the season-series tiebreaker.
“I know Buck had some thoughts,” Boone later added. “That’s all I was responding to. He’s wrong. But it doesn’t matter. We’ve got to go play, and we’ve got to go perform, as everyone does this time of year. We feel really good about our team. We’re playing well. All that’s in the past now. We’ve got to play well moving forward.”
The first move for both clubs was deciding their starting pitcher for Game 1 on Saturday. The Blue Jays chose veteran right-hander Kevin Gausman. The Yankees picked Luis Gil, the reigning AL Rookie of the Year, over Will Warren, who will be available out of the bullpen.
Boone said Max Fried will start Game 2 on Sunday.
Gil and Gausman last started in their clubs’ regular-season finales Sept. 28.
Gausman, 34, tallied a 3.59 ERA in 193 innings across 32 starts. He allowed 10 runs on 17 hits in 22⅔ innings across four starts against the Yankees.
“He’s the same guy every single day,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “You don’t worry about him getting caught up in the noise and the stuff that goes with a Game 1.”
Gil, 27, missed the first four months of the season because of a lat injury before recording a 3.32 ERA in 11 starts. He faced Toronto on Sept. 9, holding the Blue Jays to one run on three hits over six innings.
“Just feel like he’s ready for this,” Boone said. “He’s in line for it. Decided we want to keep Warren an option in the pen, and we feel like Luis is ready to go.”
