Yankees head back to Toronto looking to erase nightmare

TORONTO — Welcome back to the Yankees’ house of horrors.

For the first time since Game 2 of the ALDS last October, the Yankees will return to Rogers Centre on Friday night, hoping to exorcise the demons that followed them across nine games there last year and ultimately sunk their season.

The Yankees have already seen the Blue Jays this year, splitting a four-game series with them last month in The Bronx, and lead them by nine games in the division (while remaining in a virtual tie with the Rays for first place).

And while there is nothing the Yankees can do this weekend that would completely erase the stench of what happened to them last year in Canada, they at least have a chance to not give the Blue Jays any life, like they did a season ago.

“Playing in Toronto obviously can be a different animal,” Carlos Rodón said after the Yankees finished off a sweep of the Guardians on Wednesday. “It’s a fun place to play, but they play well there. We’re excited to go in and give it our best go.”

When the Yankees arrived north of the border for the first time last season, on June 30, they led the AL East by 1 1/2 games. By the time they got through customs on their way back to New York, after getting swept in four games, they had lost the division lead and never got it back the rest of the season, with the series proving to be a turning point in the Blue Jays’ season instead.

In seven regular-season games at Rogers Centre last season — two series within just over three weeks during their worst stretch of the season — the Yankees went 1-6. They were outscored 52-33 and committed 11 errors in seven games (compared to 83 in their other 152 games of the regular season).

Then in the ALDS, with the Blue Jays having earned home-field advantage after winning the regular-season series 8-5, they boat-raced the Yankees in Games 1 and 2 at Rogers Centre by a combined score of 23-8, helping make sure there would not be a Game 5 back in Toronto.

“I’m just playing baseball and trying to win and get to the playoffs right now, so I wasn’t really thinking about that,” Jazz Chisholm Jr. said Wednesday. “But yeah, after they took us out last year, everybody has a little thing on their mind, just like the Dodgers when we lost in the World Series [in 2024]. We were coming back and that was the main thing: we got to go to the World Series again and beat the Dodgers. Then we lost to the Blue Jays. Now we got to beat the Blue Jays if they’re beating us.”

Both teams are different than the last time they saw each other at Rogers Centre. 

For one, the Yankees are playing without Aaron Judge, though they have shown during their four-game winning streak that they still have plenty of ways to survive without him. One of those is on the back of their strong rotation, with Ryan Weathers, Cam Schlittler and Will Warren scheduled to start the three games this weekend.

The Yankees’ pitching staff had a 6.95 ERA across the seven regular-season games at Rogers Centre last season, with the contact-heavy Blue Jays hitting .291 with a .872 OPS against them on their home turf. 

The Yankees’ defense was not much help, though, playing a key role in the two calamitous series there, including coinciding with Anthony Volpe’s brutal defensive slump (he had three of their 11 errors).

The Blue Jays, meanwhile, have been beat up this season and are still trying to find their footing from a World Series hangover.

Yankee killers Alejandro Kirk and Addison Barger are among those on the injured list — though Kirk could be activated on Friday, and Ernie Clement remains healthy and capable of giving them nightmares — while their big offseason signing, Dylan Cease, just got off of it on Tuesday, meaning he is not lined up to pitch in this series.

“I don’t know where they’re at in the standings right now [third],” Rodón said, “but barring that, they’re still a great club.”