Aaron Judge blasts Yankees to 3-0, 13-inning win over Blue Jays

The Yankees pulled out a big win in Toronto on Wednesday night in 13 innings.

TORONTO — The Yankees are headed back to New York two-thirds of the way through a long roadtrip that finishes up this weekend with Subway Series games against the Mets at Citi Field.

This last week has been a grind.

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There were two more two rainouts last weekend in Baltimore, a day-night doubleheader in Detroit and then two games in two days in Oh Canada land.

Along the way, the Yankees had some fun winning five of six games.

And perhaps best of all, righty Sonny Gray never looked better in a Yankees uniform.

Gray followed a strong outing in Baltimore with a great one Tuesday night in a marathon game against the Toronto Blue Jays that was scoreless for 12 innings.

The Yankees won it in 13 innings 3-0 thanks to their big boppers.

Aaron Judge hit a two-run homer off Joe Biagini for the first two runs, then Giancarlo Stanton followed with a homer to left and the Yanks had a 3-0 lead.

Earlier, Gray pitched a two-hit shutout over eight innings with eight strikeouts and two walks.

“My sinker was diving hard and my four-seamer had some late life and cut to it,” Gray said. “When I can do that and control both sides of the plate, normally good things will happen.”

This made it two gems in a row for Gray, who earned a win in Baltimore on June 1 with a one-run, six-inning outing in which he allowed just four hits.

Until the 13th, the Yankees were in danger of being shut out for the first time in 108 games. The last time they didn’t score was in a 4-0 loss in Toronto on Aug 10, 2017.

The Yankees’ winning rally began with Brett Gardner singling with one out in the 13th, then Judge hit a 1-2 curveball over the wall in left-center for his 17th homer.

“Heaters and sliders to start off, and then he flipped in that big curveball,” Judge said.

Judge was hitless in 15 at-bats before his homer and playing his first game since going 0 for 9 with eight strikeouts in Monday’s doubleheader in Detroit.

Gray was perfect through four innings, and he retired the 12 in a row on just 42 pitches.

Blue Jays first baseman Justin Smoak ended the no-hit bid in the fifth with a leadoff double to right center, then Kendrys Morales followed with a line single to left to put runners on the corners with nobody out.

In a lot of Gray’s past outings, rallies like this turned into bad innings.

This time, he pitched out of the mess.

“I got in a little bit of trouble there, but it was stay the course,” Gray said. “Try to make good pitches and let good things happen.”

First, Smoak was thrown out at the plate easily trying to score from third base on Kevin Pillar’s chopper to third baseman Miguel Andujar. Then after Russell Martin walked to load the bases, Gray got Devon Travis to hit a grounder to second baseman Gleyber Torres that turned into a 4-6-3 double play.

Blue Jays starter Sam Gaviglio also was very good shutting out the Yankees on three hits for seven innings.

The Yankees wasted a few scoring opportunities against Gaviglio.

In the Yankees second, Austin Romine was robbed of a two-out RBI single on a scorched grounder that Blue Jays second baseman Devon Travis flagged down with a nifty backhand stop.

Gary Sanchez, DHing with Romine catching Gray again, laced a two-out double in the fourth for the Yankees’ first hit, but was stranded when Didi Gregorius flied to left.

The Yanks then loaded the bases with two outs in the fifth on two singles and a walk, but Greg Bird killed the threat by hitting a weak inning-ending groundball to first.

“We wanted to try to scratch out some runs early,” Judge said. “We had a couple of guys on and we weren’t able to get that big hit for Gray). He was making his pitches. He was ahead I felt on every single hitter. It was quite a performance. It was tough not being able to get him that win, but in the end we were able to get the win overall for the team.”

NOTABLE

— Romine’s 0-for-5 night ended his career-long hitting streak ended at 11 games.

— Sanchez was 1 for 6 with a double and two strikeouts after entering the game in a 3-for-36 slump.

LOOKING AHEAD

Thursday: Off day

Friday: Yankees at Mets, 7:10 p.m., YES Network, SNY & MLB Network (out of market only). RHP Masahiro Tanaka (7-2, 4.79) vs. RHP Jacob DeGrom (4-0, 1.49).

Saturday: Yankees at Mets, 7:15 p.m., FOX. RHP Domingo German (0-4, 5.44) vs LHP Steven Matz (2-4, 3.42).

Sunday: Yankees at Mets, 8:05 p.m., ESPN. RHP Luis Severino (9-1, 2.20) vs. RHP Noah Syndergaard (4-1, 3.06).

Randy Miller may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook