The Blue Jays certainly haven’t played like a first place team with defeats in four of five of five with a late rally falling short in a 7-6 loss at the Yankees.
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The Blue Jays are hoping a return to Rogers Centre will help them bounce back after a three-game sweep in NY knocked Toronto out of first place in the American League East.
However, it’s possible that 90 wins could be enough since there are so many intradivision matchups on the schedule. Now riding a four-game winning streak, not only is NY well within reach of the Baltimore Orioles, who occupy that final wild-card spot, they’re also 4 1/2 games behind the Boston Red Sox for the AL East crown. NY also is within 4 1/2 games of the division lead – its smallest deficit since April 28. As badly as he wants to be a starter, “Right now, I want to help the team and [relief pitching] is what we need”. “All we can control is what’s in front of us today and then watch the scoreboard”.
Severino wound up pitching three scoreless innings, before handing the ninth inning to Tyler Clippard, who got his first Yankees save. Edwin Encarnacion and Melvin Upton got RBI singles on infield hits to pull Toronto within a run.
Reliever James Hoyt (1-0) struck out two in 1 1-3 innings for his first major league win. He had two RBIs on Tuesday and has a career-high 112 on the year. Photo Credit: Starlin Castro #14 of the New York Yankees runs the bases after his third inning home run against the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday, Sep.
But 40 pitches later, the scored closed to 7-6, the Blue Jays had the bases loaded with only one out, Betances was headed to the showers and someone named Blake Parker was coming in.
Parker struck out Pillar for the second out and finished off his first save when left fielder Brett Gardner leapt and caught Justin Smoak’s fly ball up against the wall.
Blue Jays: SS Troy Tulowitzki was back in the lineup, a day after manager John Gibbons said he needed a game to rest.
With only six outs remaining – but Betances only available for three of them after the closer pitched the past two games – Girardi kept Warren in the game after he had already recorded five outs. Normally he would have been unavailable Tuesday, but September circumstances are different, especially in the situation the Yankees are in.
Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Marcus Stroman winds up during the third inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016, in New York. Between them they managed to hold the Blue Jays to zero runs on five hits and three walks through nine innings. Granted the Jays offense is struggling, but there are times when you have to tip your cap. Jose Abreu hit his fifth homer in seven games, Miguel Gonzalez came off the disabled list to throw 6 1/3 innings of six-hit ball.
“My stuff feels as sharp as it’s been all year”, Stroman said.
It took 93 wins for the Blue Jays to win the East previous year and a number close to that will likely be needed to claim the division title this season. He originally was to stay in the minors for one more rehab start.
Randal Grichuk’s go-ahead two-run homer in the ninth inning gave St Lous Cardinals a 9-7 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. I would have liked to see Mitchell stretched out a little bit longer, he only threw 80 pitches, but that’s nothing to complain about.
In a sense, that pitch was the turning point of the game. “I’m ready, I’m excited”.
So are the Yankees, who are still in a playoff race a month after deciding to rebuild and jettison veterans following four months of maddening inconsistency following a 9-17 start.
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The way manager Joe Girardi described it, for weeks Bryan Mitchell was throwing from a chair with his injured foot elevated just to keep his arm in shape down in lonely Florida. Hopefully we can take advantage of it.
