New York Yankees’ Starlin Castro celebrates with teammates after the Yankees defeated the Toronto Blue Jays in a baseball game Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016, in New York.
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With one game now separating three teams in the AL East, it’s crunch time for the Blue Jays and their postseason hopes. He started the day tied with Angels slugger Albert Pujols for the league lead in RBIs. 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.
Three different pitchers earned saves in the series, and four have saves in New York’s last six wins.
“We have been playing good baseball”, Yankees left fielder Brett Gardner said.
One of the three will take the East, leaving the others to fight over two wild card berths. Edwin Encarnacion holds 138 hits with 86 runs, 37 homers and 112 RBI.
Martin tweaked the same knee during an at-bat early Wednesday against the Yankees, but remained in the game until the top of the ninth inning when he was pinch-hit for by Dioner Navarro, the team’s backup catcher.
Royals 10, Twins 3: Kendrys Morales had two home runs, including a three-run blast in Kansas City’s seven-run ninth inning.
It was New York’s first sweep of a division foe since July previous year against Baltimore, and its first of the Blue Jays since June 2014, also at Yankee Stadium.
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.
Dellin Betances, summoned to protect a 7-4 lead in the ninth, walked three, tossed in a wild pitch and was slapped for a couple of RBI hits that didn’t leave the infield.
Brett Gardner made a leaping catch at the top of the left-field wall on Smoak’s bases-loaded drive for the final out, and the Blue Jays fell to wild card-contending NY 7-6.
Marcus Stroman (9-7) struck out eight in five innings but the Blue Jays lost for the fifth time in six games. In his 28 starts and 19-3 record this year, Porcello owns a 3.23 ERA with a 1.02 WHIP in 186.2 innings. “And that’s all you can ask for at this time of the season”.
Tommy Layne issued a walk, then Ben Heller gave up a two-run double by Pillar, giving the Blue Jays a 4-3 lead while taking the air out of the Stadium before the Yankees’ eighth-inning rally got the crowd going again for the roller-coaster finish.
“My stuff feels as sharp as it’s been all year”, Stroman said. I felt in that at-bat with McCann if I get that strike one it changes the at-bat maybe and that situation (the home run) doesn’t happen. “I just worry about winning today”, general manager Brian Cashman said beforehand.
Mitchell was promoted Tuesday from Triple-A after missing much of the year because of an injury to his left big toe sustained late in spring training. “Would we have liked him to make another minor-league (rehab) start? Yes”.
With his foot on the rubber, Mitchell went five innings and gave up just four hits while walking two and striking out two as he threw 80 pitches (49 for strikes). Mitchell last pitched Friday, and threw 5⅓ innings on 91 pitches.
“(Mitchell) was a big loss, but he’s back now”, Girardi said before the game. “I’m ready, I’m excited”.
The Yankees start a four-game series against the Rays tomorrow, and they’ll hopefully continue to make strides in the postseason race. Sanchez and Judge will be back in the starting lineup Thursday, manager Joe Girardi said. “When you don’t do that and underperform, it can bite you in the (rear), so we had to dig ourselves out of a deep hole, but in the last month, we’ve given ourselves a chance”.
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“We’re fine. Extremely confident group of guys that we have”, Stroman said.
