Once upon a time the Blue Jays were a lock for third place in the AL East behind the Yankees and Red Sox, and ahead of the Orioles and (Devil) Rays. Then the Rays got good and Toronto slipped down in the standings. The last two years though, the Blue Jays have a pair of trips to the ALCS to their credit, all while the Yankees have been floundering in the 85-ish win range.
The last two seasons we frequently saw the Blue Jays riding high and the Yankees struggling whenever these two teams met. Now the roles are reversed. The Yankees are tied for first place in the AL East and they’ve won 14 of their last 18 games. The Blue Jays are in last place at 8-17. Only the Royals at 7-16 have a worse record this year. It wasn’t until this past weekend that Toronto won their first set of back-to-back games. Yeah.
That doesn’t mean this three-game series will be easy, of course. All intra-division games in the AL East seem to be tough, even when bad or slumping teams are involved. The Yankees lost yesterday, but they laid a pretty good beating on the Orioles this weekend, and before that they won a pair of games at Fenway Park. Time to take care of business against Toronto. Here is the Blue Jays’ lineup and here is the Yankees’ lineup:
- LF Brett Gardner
- SS Didi Gregorius
- DH Matt Holliday
- 2B Starlin Castro
- CF Jacoby Ellsbury
- RF Aaron Judge
- 1B Greg Bird
- C Austin Romine
- 3B Ronald Torreyes
RHP Luis Severino
Not the best weather day in New York today. It’s cloudy and humid, which usually means rain is coming. The heaviest stuff won’t arrive for a few hours. Looks like they should be able to get nine innings in before that. I hope so, anyway. Tonight’s game will begin at 7:05pm ET. You can watch on YES. Enjoy the game.
Roster Move: The Yankees optioned Bryan Mitchell to Triple-A Scranton earlier today, the team announced. I assume he’ll work on his first base skills down there. Luis Cessa was called up to give the Yankees a fresh long man. He’s stretched out to 90+ pitches and today was his day to start, so he’s good to go very long, which I hope is not necessary.
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