New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge at bat during the third inning of a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Aaron Judge’s right arm was a major storyline for a rare September series with the Yankees and Blue Jays holding the top two spots in the AL East.
He was making throws from right field in a game setting for the first time since July 25 due to a flexor tendon strain in his right elbow that caused a brief injured list stint and limited him to being a designated hitter.
On Friday he made about a 68 mph toss to Jazz Chisholm Jr. and the Yankees grew defensive about it in the postgame aftermath and the pregame follow up on Saturday morning.
He began Sunday by making about a 70 mph throw on a double by Ernie Clement that nearly recorded an out but also made diving catch on George Springer’s sinking liner in the fourth to protect a one-run lead and prevent the Yankees from facing the likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in a potentially escalating inning.
It turned out Judge’s other arm contributed to some kind of prevention as in stopping Max Scherzer from throwing a fourth changeup to Ben Rice four batters into the final meeting of the season series.
Judge was on second and when he got a signal from Cody Bellinger at first, he began subtly waving his arms so quickly it was easy to miss but the brief motion served as an indication a changeup is coming.
It was not an emphatic motion but certainly noticeable, especially when the third changeup wound up getting hooked foul in the last row of the right field seats in the second deck. After the long foul ball, Ty France went over to alert Scherzer and Rice eventually hit a fastball over the fence.
“I was getting a better feel for his fastball, better feel for his off-speed,” Rice said. “The timing felt good. I just kind of waited him out.”
Rice waited him out and forced Scherzer to avoid throwing a pitch he is allowing hitters to bat .267 against after permitting a .192 average on the changeup last season, a .207 mark in 2023, a .224 average in 2022 and a .150 mark in 2021.
It is not the first time Scherzer’s changeup has been hittable. In the forgettable 2020 pandemic season, he gave up a .328 average on the pitch and when he helped the Nationals win the World Series in 2019, hitters batted .240 off the changeup, an increase of 98 points from 2018 and a 114-point increase from 2017.
Now before anyone can accuse the Yankees of anything shady, it is common knowledge the Yankees are good at spotting things and Scherzer has heard multiple times about the flaw when he throws the changeup.
Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Max Scherzer winds up to throw during the first inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
“It’s something we’re aware of,” Scherzer said. “They can get my changeup out of my glove from first base … It’s not just the Yankees; we know across the league guys can do that. I’ve had multiple guys tell me that. I thought I addressed it, I thought I had the proper adjustment, but clearly I hadn’t.”
It was at least the second time this season the Yankees were spotted giving signals about an opposing pitcher from second base.
On July 10, Bellinger was making similar motions to alert Austin Wells was about to throw his slider and the catcher hit a fastball for a game-tying single to set up a 6-5 win decided on Judge’s sacrifice fly in the 10th, which ended a game when the Yankees were down by five runs and no-hit into the eighth by Bryan Woo.
In that aftermath of the unlikely rally, Cal Raleigh acknowledged what the Yankees were doing, saying:
“He was tipping every time (with a runner) on second base. Obviously, they weren’t making it very discreet, but it is part of the game. We have to know about that better going into series, and that made it really hard there at the end.”
Raleigh’s comments about what happened to Munoz occurred about three months after the All-Star catcher and Jose Berrios had a tense verbal exchange in Toronto for a similar reason. In the fourth inning of that game, Berrios believed Raleigh was relaying pitches and manager John Schneider acknowledged the gamesmanship of figuring out pitches from the bases as being part of the game.
It was similar to what Schneider said in the aftermath of the Yankees winning for the 11th time in 14 games to slice what was a 6 1/2 game deficit on eight occasions to a two-game gap for the second time in the past week.
They were relaying; they’re good at it,” Schneider said. “Max has to be a little bit better. It was obvious on the changeups. It’s fair game.
“All of Major League Baseball knows the Yankees are good when they’ve got something. I’m not the only one who’s going to say it — maybe I’m the only one who will say it publicly. We have to do a better job of making sure we aren’t giving anything away.”
The last part about saying it publicly may be accurate. In the Seattle game, Raleigh admitted it while manger Dan Wilson downplayed it by citing tough counts and the Yankees capitalizing.
If anything, it added more intrigue to in a season when the Blue Jays and Yankees are the AL East’s top two teams for the sixth time.
The only times both teams finished first and second in the AL East occurred in 1985, 1993, 2006, 2015 and 2022. Only 1985, 1993 and 2015 can qualify as real divisional races and each time the Blue Jays won.
In 1985, the Blue Jays won their first divisional title by two games, getting three wins in a mid-September series at Yankee Stadium to open a 4 1/2 game lead and widening it to 6 1/2 when the Yankees lost eight straight.
In 1993, Toronto won by seven games and finished it off with two home wins over the Yankees in the final week to get lead to 6 1/2.
Toronto did not win another division title until 2015 when a massive second surge in the final two-plus months enabled them to clear the Yankees by six games and they held a 3 1/2 game lead after taking three of four in mid-September in the Bronx.
Forty years after their first divisional crown, the Blue Jays are occupants of the AL East lead since July 3 when they completed a four-game sweep in Toronto with an 8-5 victory that was part of the Yankees’ second six-game losing streak in two games.
The Blue Jays did so well in July they pushed the Yankees to 6 1/2 games out on eight occasions. The most recent was Aug. 23 when the Yankees were pounded 12-1 and lost the first three games with the Red Sox.
By the end of the intrigue about the Yankees spotting Scherzer’s changeup, it was apparent that the race is on to avoid the wild-card round and maybe even catch the Detroit Tigers for the AL’s top record.
“We are in a position to go get it,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Now, we’ve got to go do it.’’.
“This is big league baseball. You want to be in this position,” Scherzer said. “You want to be playing competitive ballgames in September. This is what it’s all about.”
And so is the competitive edge of picking up an opposing pitcher while standing on the bases.