While it would have been sweet
if the Toronto Blue Jays had swept the Yankees in their four-game set in the
Bronx this weekend, taking three out of four is a big step towards winning the
American League East. Although the bats went silent in Sunday’s 5-0 loss, they
were booming in the first three games of the series.
After being rained out on
Thursday, the Jays got off to a great start on Friday night when they scored
five runs in the first inning, powered by a pair of two-run home runs, by Josh
Donaldson (his 38th of the season) and Justin Smoak (15). Edwin
Encarnacion added his 31st in the fourth inning,
another two-run shot and Russell Martin smacked two—a solo shot in the fifth
and a two-run blast in the seventh—giving the catcher 19 on the year.
David Price started on the mound
for Toronto, pitching five innings and allowing two runs while striking out
seven to improve his record on the year to 15-5. While reliever LaTroy Hawkins
had a bit of a rough outing, the rest of the Jays’ bullpen shut down the
Yankees. The final score was 11-5, stretching the Jays lead in the division to
2 ½ games.
Then there was the double-header
on Saturday. The first pitch of game one was shortly after 1 pm and the final
out of the second game wasn’t until nearly ten hours later.
The Yankees jumped out to an
early lead, 4-1 by the end of the fourth, but more importantly for the Jays, a
collision between shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and centre fielder Kevin Pillar
ended badly. Tulowitzki suffered a cracked shoulder blade and some bruising in
the ribs. He could possibly be gone for three weeks, practically the rest of
the regular season. His replacement, Cliff Pennington (who actually would play
second base while Ryan Goins would move from second to short) would later make
an important defensive play to prevent a Yankee rally from continuing.
The Jays would tie the game at
four in the top of the fifth thanks to more home runs. Ben Revere hit his
second of the year—his first as a Blue Jay—while Encarnacion would hit his 32nd.
Jose Bautista, who had homered earlier in the game—would hit another (35) in
the top of the eighth to give Toronto a 5-4 lead. But it was short-lived when
the Yankees tied the game in the bottom half of the inning and would have taken
the lead if not for the great play by Pennington.
Yankee batter Greg Bird, lined a
pitch on the ground between Pennington and first baseman Chris Colabello, but
Pennington reached out and snagged the ball, got up and threw to Colabello to
retire the side and keep the game tied.
After a scoreless ninth and
tenth, the Jays loaded the bases with no outs in the top of the eleventh. After
a strike out by catcher Dioner Navarro, the Jays scored four runs on three
walks and a single to take a 9-5 lead. Jays’ relief pitcher Ryan Tepera pitched
the bottom of the ninth to preserve the victory and move the Jays ahead in the
division by 3 ½ games.
In the night cap, the Jays again
got off to a good start by scoring six runs in the second inning. Pennington
hit his second homer of the season and doubles by Bautista and Martin helped extend the lead.
After a Brett Gardner hit a three-run
homer for the Yankees to cut that lead to 6-3, the game was forced into a rain
delay for about 45 minutes. When play resumed, the Yankees put a small rally
together to close the gap to 6-4, but a four-run seventh put the game out of
reach despite Gardner hitting another three-run homer in the eighth. Final
score: Toronto-10 New York-7. The lead in the division grew to 4 ½ games.
If fell back to 3 ½ after the
Yankees salvaged a game but overall, it was a good weekend for the Jays who
picked up two games in the standings over the course of the weekend. After a
day off on Monday, the Jays head to Atlanta to take on the struggling Braves
for three. The Yankees travel to St. Petersburg, Florida to take on the Tampa
Bay Rays for three games starting Monday night.
The Jays and Yankees have not
yet seen the last of each other as they will reconvene their battle for the
division for three games in Toronto starting September 21.
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