Call it luck or call it a true baseball aberration – a pitcher with numbers that wouldn’t keep him in many rotations might be just the guy to steer the once-hot Toronto Blue Jays away from a sweep Sunday against the visiting New York Yankees.
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The victory improved the Yankees’ record to 63-51 as they reclaim the top spot in the American League (AL) East.
Not so fast. All of a sudden, the Jays have slipped back to 1½ games out. The first-place New York Yankees will try to put some distance between themselves and the Toronto Blue Jays and earn a series win when they visit for the second of a three-game set on Saturday. Then Beltrán homered to right, scoring McCann and Headley. Carlos Beltran, of course, greeted Price’s replacement, Aaron Sanchez, with a three-run, pinch-hit home run.
RANGERS 5, RAYS 3: Josh Hamilton homered and delivered the tiebreaking sacrifice fly as host Texas snapped Tampa Bay’s four-game winning streak.
Royals 4, Angels 1 • Eric Hosmer hit a go-ahead two-run homer, Danny Duffy settled down after a wild start and Kansas City rallied for a win at home over Los Angeles.
Blue Jays manager John Gibbons was hopeful his team could notch a win against the Yankees August 16 when the series closed out. “I’m just glad that I was able to go out strong and give nine innings”. He also allowed two walks and struck out three. He threw 72 strikes while getting the whole job done in 112 pitches.
Well, that 8th inning didn’t go to plan.
Dan Hamilton/USA Today Sports Carlos Beltran gets the Yankees off to a fast start with a solo homer in the 1st inning.
Dioner Navarro will work behind the dish and bat sixth for the Blue Jays against Masahiro Tanaka and the Yankees. “This is why he came here”.
The former Milwaukee Brewer is looking for his fourth straight win after yielding a total of three runs and eight hits in 18 2/3 innings over is previous three turns. He was up to the challenge Saturday.
“Tex has been having a great year for us since the beginning of the season, I had a tough April, but right now I feel real good, ” Beltran told The Post as he walked to the team bus. It was the first full game that Tanaka had seen since June 28, 2014. I’m really not a fan of early inning bunts. Not Saturday.
Yankees eighth. Hawkins pitching. Headley struck out. Bird singled to left, Teixeira to second.
The Toronto Blue Jays are not likely to change their batting order, despite two consecutive losses to the Yankees and a flood of opinion about that order on social media.
The Yankees had an opportunity to add to their lead in the third following a one-out triple by Jacoby Ellsbury.
“He just out-pitched us”, Blue Jays catcher Dioner Navarro said of Tanaka. “They went to our home (last weekend) and they took three out of three”.
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-RHP Michael Pineda (strained right forearm) had a 30-pitch bullpen session on Thursday and is scheduled to throw 45 pitches on a rehabilitation assignment with Double-A Trenton on Sunday. “But for the most part I thought I was all over the place”.
