NY took down the first-place Blue Jays last night in a back and forth game for the ages that would wind up being a night where the Yankees had to use numerous arms out of the bullpen. But while Chase Headley was making great plays for the Yanks at third base and Brett Gardner saved a win with a game-ending catch against the left-field wall, Toronto infielders have prolonged innings with failed glove plays and Kevin Pillar has come up tantalizingly short of adding to his personal highlight reel.
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“Boy, this is exciting”, Judge said to Gardner, or words to that effect. Though he had pitched so well the last time they saw him, that was spring training.
Austin connected on a 95 miles per hour two-seam fastball, drilling Sanchez’s 0-1 pitch into the right-center field bleachers for a 3-2 Yankees lead.
New York Yankees’ Starlin Castro rounds third base after hitting a solo home prun during the third inning of a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016, in New York. The next obstacle for Williams in her quest to match Steffi Graf for most all-time grand slam championships is a match tonight against Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic, who beat Serena’s older sister Venus this week. They’re also just 3.5 games out in the division race, too.
After he landed and realized the ball was in his mitt, Gardner leapt again with fists raised to celebrate the Yankees’ third straight win.
“You want to pull your weight around here”, McCann said.
He flipped the ball into the air, ran toward the dugout, but only made it part way before he was mobbed by his teammates, leaping, chest-bumping and generally acting the way teams do after something very, very big has happened. In a loss against Tampa Bay his last time out, Estrada went five innings with seven hits and five earned.
The New York Yankees completed a sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays to close in on an Major League Baseball wildcard spot, leaving the Boston Red Sox to take over.
Suddenly, chasing that second wild-card berth seems nearly like settling.
The Yankees had lost five straight home series to Toronto before winning the first two games in this three-game set. Girardi hoped to avoid using Dellin Betances, Tyler Clippard, Adam Warren and Luis Severino, so he had to dig deep in the bullpen when CC Sabathia went just four innings, allowing three homers while throwing 87 pitches. We’re in a little bit of a tough stretch right now, we were riding high coming out of Baltimore, struggled down in Tampa, struggled here. He’s hit safely in a career-best 12 straight games, the longest streak by a Ray this season.
But somehow, the shedding of a couple of spare parts (Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller) and some exhausted blood (Carlos Beltran and Alex Rodriguez) and replacing it with the youthful exuberance of Judge, Austin and Gary Sanchez has given this club a jolt of adrenaline. “I know how much he wanted it”.
“What were the chances the Cleveland Cavaliers were going to win down 3 to 1?” “Not good. But it happened”. Resurgent New York plays 20 of its remaining 23 games against division opponents, putting it in position to compete despite selling off key pieces at the August 1 deadline. “You’re not going to see any panic from me”. “But I think sometimes new blood can just stir things up”.
One of the three will take the East, leaving the others to fight over two wild card berths. So their destiny is exclusively in their own hands.
Joe Girardi wasn’t comfortable calling this series sweep a statement, “But we keep getting closer, and that’s the idea here”, said the manager.
“It’s all in front of us”, he said.
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Texas, which leads the AL West by 8ﾽ games, had a season-high seven doubles among its 15 hits and won for the eighth time in 10 games.
