George Springer launches Canada Day fireworks as Blue Jays blow out Yankees to move a game out of AL East lead

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The Canada Day ceremony was a thing of patriotic beauty, as it always is for the Blue Jays. And given the world we live in, the latest renewal was perhaps bumped with a greater dose of passion than in the recent past.

There was a home team that has been playing well and thus making believers of the vast majority of those clad in red among the 41,129 at the Rogers Centre on a brilliant July 1 afternoon.

There was the fact that the villainous New York Yankees were the opponent, the AL East division leaders. It was just the third time the Jays have faced the Bronx Bombers on our nation’s birthday, the first since 1987, and Game 2 of a four-game series that has the feel of the biggest around these parts in years.

The anthems, the red and white scoreboard and the mammoth Canadian flag covering the outfield for O Canada were just party favours, however.

The showstoppers were undeniably the George Springer fireworks, unleashed in broad daylight at that, to lead his team to a rollicking 12-5 victory that delighted the sold-out crowd and sent a message to the Yanks.

Springer belted not one but two home runs to power the Jays, the second of those a skyrocketing grand slam in the seventh inning, a sky-high blast of pyrotechnics that looked like it might never come back down and brought a thundering roar from the raucous home crowd.

That Springer’s team-leading 13th homer of the season came a half-inning after a couple of Jays errors allowed the Yankees back in the game added to the enthusiasm and electricity of the moment. He wasn’t done either, performing an eighth-inning curtain call with a single that scored two more Jays runs.

“It’s just kind of one of those things where, for me, I know what (manager John Schneider) wants from me and what he needs me to do,” said Springer, whose seven RBIs were the most in a game in his decorated career.  “I think the biggest thing for me is I’ve kind of learned how to handle the failure, the ups and the downs. It’s not always about getting a hit, you know, it’s the process.”

It’s much more than that right now for Springer, who is becoming an offensive leader on the team as he banged out the 99th and 100th homers of his career. He may be a veteran getting longer in the tooth at age 35, but it certainly feels like the Jays are getting vintage George Springer, he of the World Series MVP era with the Astros.

“George is a big-time player when he’s at his best, and likes moments like that,” Schneider said of the grand-slam showstopper. “He’s one of the few guys that have been in spots that not many people have, and it’s easy to slow the moment down. It’s a big-time player, big-time swing.

“I think when you think about George being productive, this is kind of what you envision.”

Perhaps the biggest and best takeaway of all from Tuesday’s win is that with victories in the first two games of this potentially pivotal series, the Jays moved to within a game of the Yankees for the division lead. With that, the possibilities over the next two days are deliciously enticing for a team that finished in the division basement last season.

“We’ve really kind of battled back this last month and  put a nice race together right in front of us,” Tuesday’s starter Kevin Gausman said. “It’s going to be important these last couple of weeks before the (all-star) break.”

With a record of 47-38, the Jays moved nine games above .500 for the first time this season and, given the wild celebration on the field after the final out, must feel there’s nowhere to go but even higher.

All three of the Jays homers in the game were of the unlikely variety as Springer’s pair came the night after taking a knee to the throat on a slide into third base, a play that had all the looks of a serious injury.

The other went to the offensively struggling Andres Gimenez, a three-run shot in the fourth that came off of Yankees’ stellar starter Max Fried, who had allowed three runs or more in just two of his previous 17 starts and was no-hitting the Jays through three innings.

Getting to Fried, who came into the contest with a 10-2 record and a 1.92 ERA, was always going to be one of the stoutest challenges of the series for the Jays. Dinging him for a four-run inning on those two homers in the fourth changed the complexion of the game and certainly sent the party vibes to high.

With their resiliency, the more the Jays win games like this against big-time opponents, the more the fan base is going to embrace them as summer arrives in earnest and the Rogers Centre again becomes the place to be.

With five more Yankees games at the dome this month, there’s plenty left to be settled with the AL East-leading Bronx Bombers. And with players such as Springer leading the way and doing his thing, the possibilities are fun to dream on.

“The guy you saw today, he can completely take over a game and when he’s locked in he’ll do that an entire series,” Gausman said of Springer. “The talent, it’s still in there. He’s still the kind of player he was in Houston.”