Dudley Do-Wrong: Blue Jays analyst won’t let Yankees feud die

Sportsnet analyst Caleb Joseph called for the Toronto Blue Jays to escalate their feud with the New York Yankees ahead of Wednesday’s game.

The Toronto Blue Jays have not had a great series against the New York Yankees, as they dropped the first two games this week. On Monday, the Blue Jays alleged that outfielder Aaron Judge was doing something nefarious by looking to his right toward his dugout during an at-bat and immediately crushed a home run to dead center field. Then, there were the complaints about the Yankees base coaches not standing in their respective boxes (neither were the Blue Jays coaches). Despite these complaints, Yankees pitcher Domingo German was in the wrong for having a sticky substance in his pitching hand and thus earned an automatic 10-game suspension.

As if there couldn’t be any more drama in this series, one former player and current analyst just won’t let the feud cool off.

On Wednesday, ex-Blue Jays catcher and current Sportsnet analyst Caleb Joseph apparently called for starting pitcher Chris Bassitt to “send a message” to the Yankees before the end of their series. This comes one day after Joseph called for Kevin Gausman to do the same thing.

Caleb Joseph calls for Blue Jays to send a message to Yankees

Joseph didn’t spend much time on the Blue Jays. Specifically, he was on the team for the 2020 shortened season, where he played just three games. Besides that, the American catcher played the majority of his seven-year career with the Baltimore Orioles.

As for the Judge “scandal,” there was nothing nefarious as the Blue Jays had implied. Blue Jays pitcher Jay Jackson, who surrendered the home run, admitted that he was tipping his pitchers, as he told The Athletic.

"“From what I was told, I was kind of tipping the pitch,” said Jackson, h/t The Athletic. “It was (less) my grip when I was coming behind my ear. It was the time it was taking me from my set position, from my glove coming from my head to my hip. On fastballs, I was kind of doing it quicker than on sliders. They were kind of picking up on it.”"

On Tuesday, there was no pitch thrown intentionally to hit a Yankee player. Judge silenced the boos and the Blue Jays in the form of a two-run home run to dead center field to give the Yankees a 5-3 lead. The Yankees went on to win that game 6-3.

The series officially ends on Thursday night. Given the amount of drama in the first two games, one has to wonder if things will escalate further. After Thursday, the Yankees and Blue Jays won’t meet until September, when they will play six games.