NEW YORK -- Yankee Stadium is where great postseason scripts are written, and the Blue Jays just used it as the backdrop for their own dress rehearsal.

Wednesday night¡¯s 6-1 win over the Yankees is what October will need to look like for Toronto. This team is built to pitch well, defend well and scrape across a few more runs than the other guys, making this the best blueprint we¡¯ve seen in weeks.

Getting to the postseason is step one, but the Blue Jays continue to help themselves with wins in the Bronx. Wednesday marked their fifth victory in a row. The Mariners, Rangers and Astros all won too, but with seven games still remaining between Seattle and Texas, the Blue Jays¡¯ recent wins are their own version of running out the clock.

• Games remaining (10): at NYY (1), at TB (3), vs. NYY (3), vs. TB (3)
• Standings update: Toronto sits second in the AL Wild Card race, 1 game up on both Seattle and Texas.
• Tiebreakers: Lose vs. Texas; win vs. Houston; lose vs. Seattle.

Until New York¡¯s bullpen absolutely unraveled in the eighth and ninth innings, this game had every feature of a Kevin Gausman classic, right down to a lack of offense.

A year after Gausman was cursed with some of the worst batted-ball luck in MLB history, he¡¯s spent 2023 cursed with low run support. Regardless of which crimes Gausman committed in a past life to bring this his way, he¡¯s pitched through it brilliantly, building another of the most dominant seasons in Blue Jays history.

¡°One, it impresses me every time he does it. Two, he has the demeanor where he¡¯s really well suited for it,¡± manager John Schneider said. ¡°He doesn¡¯t really let moments or situations get too big. I think that¡¯s a big part of what makes him great.¡±

With 10 fanned batters over six scoreless innings, Gausman¡¯s 232 strikeouts trail only Robbie Ray (248) and Roger Clemens (271, 292) for a single season in franchise history. He¡¯s fit every definition of the word ¡°ace,¡± but now that is when it matters most.

¡°It helps playing in meaningful games, too,¡± Gausman said. ¡°You get that extra bit of adrenaline knowing that. To be honest, I¡¯m trying to do better for my teammates than I am for myself. That¡¯s kind of the point where we¡¯re at. However bad you feel, everybody else feels just as bad if not worse.¡±

That needs to be the Blue Jays¡¯ foundation in October. This roster ranks 13th in OPS and 14th in slugging percentage, so it isn¡¯t exactly built to slug its way back into games like the 2015-16 teams. With this bullpen behind this rotation, they shouldn¡¯t need to.

Chad Green looked the best he has with the Blue Jays, Jordan Hicks blew through the top of the Yankees¡¯ order and Erik Swanson allowed the one blemish, a solo homer in the ninth. Jordan Romano or Tim Mayza will be part of these big moments come October, but this is what the script looks like.

¡°Everything seems to be trending in our direction,¡± said Whit Merrifield. ¡°Pitching has been good, offense has been good, defense has been good, baserunning has been good. We¡¯ve got to continue to do that against teams that are ¡­ more engaged in what the end of the season holds, if I can say that as politely as I could.¡±

The offense¡¯s role? It doesn¡¯t need to be much, but it has to be something.

Wednesday¡¯s version was a string of early hits from Kevin Kiermaier, George Springer and finally Bo Bichette, who is starting to scorch the ball again. That held Toronto in front until New York¡¯s bullpen fell apart, walking in two runs over a pair of ugly innings, which isn¡¯t something the Blue Jays see as often from bullpens built for the postseason.

Come October, though, some in baseball believe that a specific style of offense is best suited for the big stage.

¡°People always say that contact is at a premium when you get to this point of the year and in the postseason,¡± Schneider said. ¡°It¡¯s tough to string together multiple hits against really good starters and really good relievers. People gravitate towards contact, but at the same time, you need to clip a homer with a guy or two on base. Getting them on, the first part, is probably the most important.¡±

The Blue Jays did plenty of that first part on Wednesday, taking six walks on top of their nine hits.?

All that¡¯s left in order to turn this script into a blockbuster is to repeat it against teams who will, as Merrifield so deftly alluded to, also be playing into October.