Falling to Toronto in extra innings couldn’t dampen the spirits of a team buoyed by playing in front of a Yankee Stadium crowd for the first time in more than a year.
Twenty minutes before Gerrit Cole threw the first pitch of the 2021 Major League Baseball season on Thursday, his teammate, D.J. LeMahieu, emerged from the Yankees’ dugout and jogged to the outfield to stretch. He was met with something absent from Yankee Stadium since October 2019: applause and cheers from fans. For the first time in what has felt like forever for many, baseball was back in New York in a fashion that resembled normality. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Yankees performed for a television-only audience last year. Now in what is hoped to be the downslope of the pandemic, Yankees fans were allowed to return to see their World Series hopeful team in person. In front of a crowd of 10,850 fans, the Yankees fell to the Toronto Blue Jays,3-2, in 10 innings. Nick Nelson, the Yankees relief pitcher, surrendered the go-ahead run on a double to Randal Grichuk. But there is less reason for Yankees fans to worry about any individual loss this season: M.L.B. teams are scheduled to play their traditional 162-game regular season unlike the pandemic-shortened,60-game season last year. “It wasn’t the result we wanted, but having that buzz, having that energy back in the stadium was something special that we all enjoyed,” Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge said. “I was talking with the guys and a couple umpires. Everybody missed it.” While the Blue Jays are expected to present a formidable challenge this season, the Yankees are widely considered the best team in the American League East and one of the favorites to win the World Series. Armed with one of the most powerful lineups in baseball and a deeper starting rotation than before, the Yankees hope to end a championship drought that enters its 12th season despite their prodigious talent and spending. “The expectations with the Yankees never really change every year,” said Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner, the only player from the 2009 World Series-winning team on the current roster.
