Source: FanGraphs
The 4-2 final score makes Monday’s series opening loss seem closer than it really was. The Yankees mustered very little offense most of the night before making noise against some bad Blue Jays relievers in the ninth. They actually brought the tying run to the plate, but alas. The Yankees have lost four of their last six games and they were one-hit in one of the wins, so yeah. Not great. It’s a holiday, so let’s recap with bullet points:
- Two Token Runs: On a night Toronto’s bullpen was way thin due to their recent workload, the Yankees let Marco Estrada complete eight innings on 108 total pitches. It wasn’t until the eighth that he threw more than 16 pitches in an inning. Good job, good effort. Estrada held the Yankees to three hits (Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran, Aaron Hicks) and three walks (Ellsbury, Starlin Castro twice). At one point from Saturday to Monday the Yankees had four hits in the span of 18 innings.
- Nope-va: Ivan Nova was bound to have a subpar outing at some point, and I guess it’s good it came on a night the offense mustered little. Two birds, one stone. The Blue Jays tagged Nova for four runs on eight hits (five extra-base hits!) and a walk in six innings. He managed to give up a loud double and an opposite field homer to Ryan Goins, which is terrible and sums up the state of the Yankees. Toronto’s light-hitting No. 9 hitter nearly out-produced the entire New York offense. Ivan’s been pretty good since moving back into the rotation. Duds happen. You’re excused.
- Late Rally: A Brian McCann two-run homer got the Yankees on the board in the ninth. It snapped his career long tying 0-for-21 streak. Mark Teixeira followed with a loud double to right, so that’s cool. He wasn’t hitting the ball very hard before this recent neck issue. Castro (fly out) and Chase Headley (strikeout) batted as the tying run following Teixeira’s double and failed to reach. I guess this means the O’Neill Theory is in effect Tuesday? The Yankees better hope so.
- Leftovers: Nick Goody retired Jose Bautista (strikeout), Josh Donaldson (pop-up), and Edwin Encarnacion (strikeout) … Richard Bleier made his MLB debut and retired the two batters he faced. Bleier’s no kid. He’s 29. Congrats to him … Castro drawing two walks is pretty rare. This was his 940th career game and only his 11th (!) with two unintentional walks. Crazy.
Here’s the box score, video highlights, and updated standings. Don’t miss our Bullpen Workload and Announcer Standings pages either. Lefties CC Sabathia and J.A. Happ will be on the mound in the second game of the series Tuesday night. Will the offense give Sabathia any support? Probably not, but maybe they’ll surprise me.
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