Blue Jays fan hypocrisy has never been clearer after Buck Martinez's Yankees comments

With the New York Yankees' bullpen in the process of disintegrating against the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday night, Toronto Blue Jays announcer Buck Martinez took the opportunity to share his unfiltered thoughts about New York's luck, live on the air.

"You know, the Yankees? They're not a good team. I don't care what their record is," Martinez noted, after a seemingly standard Jose Altuve flyout in the game he was calling. He noted their propensity for wild pitches, defensive flops, and reliance on the home run ball. These are commonly levied criticisms. With 18 games to go in the regular season, Yankee fans certainly have similar concerns.

But, based on the way Toronto fans reacted in June to Yankees announcer Michael Kay's assertion that, record be damned, the Blue Jays weren't a "real" first-place team because of their flimsy run differential, surely Canadian fans rallied to the Yankees' defense here and told Martinez that such unprovoked shots were not cool.

It's nice to have our Canuck brothers on our side here, uniting across division rivalry lines to agree that a team's record is their record, and it's unimpeachable, despite their flaws! Oh ... wait. That's, uh, not what happened. Toronto loved these new comments. Loved 'em a lot.

Blue Jays fans seem pretty fired up over similar comments to the ones Yankees announcer Michael Kay made

When Kay questioned whether the Jays' record matched up with their performance/ability, Canada sent the Mounties after him. Their postgame analyst literally (ok, fine, figuratively) got on a soapbox after the series was over and gave Kay an after school lecture live on television. Kay's remarks were a grand offense in Toronto's eyes.

Somehow, I don't think the rest of the broadcast crew views Martinez's comments the same way? Not sure there'll be a solemn Jamie Campbell lecture on decorum this time? "That's just ... not how we do things here."

There is no difference worth a damn between these comments. It may matter to you that Kay made his comments on a radio show instead of a team's television broadcast. It shouldn't, but it might. Martinez — while he's not incorrect, and is echoing a reality Yankee fans have acknowledged all year — was actually far harsher in his assessment. Kay pointed to Toronto's run differential and questioned their mettle; Martinez torched the Yankees' fundamentals and called their record meaningless.

The only difference, of course, is that we know the outcome of Kay's comments and what they sparked. Toronto rallied around them, sweeping the resulting series. Martinez made his comments safely after the Yankees and Jays had already locked horns, eliminating the Yankees' lane for a direct response (though the Yankees did do some talking on the field over the weekend in the head-to-head, of course).

Will the Yankees step up to the plate this week after being challenged? Will the two sides eventually meet again in October? Or will they cower, shrug, and confirm Martinez's assessment from afar? The only thing we know for certain is that the fans who were up in arms over what they deemed to be unfair treatment from Kay are foaming at the mouth excited about their own announcer tossing the same assessment in the other direction.