As the season winds down, the Yankees will face off against the Blue Jays in Toronto, the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium and finally the Baltimore Orioles to close out the regular season. “Jose’s been known to do some things at key spots. Right guy, right time basically”.
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It’s hard for J.A. Happ to hide his grin when he’s asked about his first career 20-win season. Fourteen of those have been for the Jays, putting him second in the club record book behind George Bell (16).
“It’s popping up all over the place, the number of retweets and likes on that Twitter post, I think I’m going to have to try it again next year and come up with some new material”. In the September 7 game, Devon Travis and Troy Tulowitzki each was 2-for-4.
In the bottom of the 12th inning, with R.A. Dickey making his first relief appearance since July 21, 2012 with the New York Mets, Josh Donaldson made a two-base throwing error on a groundball by Guillermo Heredia leading off. “A couple of years ago Hunter Pence, whose an outfielder from the Giants, went to NY and had a silly incident where the Mets fans made fun of him with a bunch of silly signs like ‘Hunter Pence can’t park'”. Sabathia matched a season-high with seven scoreless innings, relying on soft contact to pitch around three walks and four hits.
“It’d be nice, to tell you the truth”, said manager John Gibbons.
“It’s pretty obvious how big he is for us”, Blue Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman said. Stroman kept us in check. The Yankees (79-75) were four games out of the second wild-card spot.
Boston, which held a 5.5-game lead over Toronto in the AL East going into Saturday’s schedule, also played later at Tampa.
The Blue Jays have had a wildly inconsistent offense-that’s offence in Canada-this season.
AL East, as its blend of young and experienced talent continues to find ways to win baseball games. The Yankees managed just three baserunners during that stretch: on three walks and a single. Stroman finished the afternoon with three walks and five strikeouts.
As for the performance of Stroman, Gibbons was impressed but still felt it necessary to remove him from the game when he did after the seventh inning.
Butler struck out and then was replaced at first by Mark Teixeira – an odd move, since the switch-hitting Teixeira may have been a better option against Grilli.
Torreyes hit a two-out triple off Jason Grilli in the eighth before Joe Girardi pinch-hit Billy Butler for Tyler Austin.
Pineda will look for a repeat of his last outing against Toronto where he held the Blue Jays scoreless in five innings pitched. The Jays, who left nine men on base, outhit NY 13-3.
ROYALS 7, TIGERS 4: Paulo Orlando hit a tying, two-run double and Eric Hosmer followed with a three-run homer against Francisco Rodriguez, capping a ninth-inning comeback that led Kansas City at Detroit. He lasted just 3 2/3 innings in his last start, giving up six runs on five hits. It was the only inning through the first eight in which the M’s had a runner reach second base. The third and final hit of the game was a single off the bat of Brett Gardner in the ninth inning. It has been a much bumpier road back to the postseason this year, and the Jays have not been able to bash their way past opponents like they did last year.
“It was just a fastball in the strike zone”, Bautista said. If they can’t make the adjustment, the Jays may find themselves on the outside looking in come October. They’ll have to jump three teams – Houston, Baltimore and Detroit – but they have the schedule to pull that off. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, he beat Toronto in 11 straight seasons from 2004-14, the longest such streak against the Jays. His ERA with Toronto now sits at 3.89 in his eight appearances with the ball club, according to baseball-reference.com.
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TORONTO-The Yankees are not the only team playing at Rogers Centre this weekend with a player in contention for a major individual award.
