Toronto – Because they’re the New York Yankees, you forget that this particular group hasn’t experienced this type of pennant race before. You forget it’s been two years since they’ve been in the playoffs. You forget that in a game like Monday night’s, it’s possible for their starting pitcher to seem a little overwhelmed.
These aren’t your father’s Toronto Blue Jays. Neither are they his Yankees.
"I just felt like maybe I was trying to do too much," Yankees starter Adam Warren said, after a 3.1-inning start in which he did just enough damage to bury his team and, maybe, their hopes of an American League East title. "Maybe I was too amped or something.
"It’s kind of a tough feeling. You just try to slow the game down. I was trying to make the best pitch in the world instead of trusting my stuff. The better hitting teams … they make you think you need to pitch better than you actually have to. That’s a trap we fall in to as pitchers. It’s something I can learn from, and be ready for my next opportunity."
This is why you trade for David Price. A head-high line drive back to the mound by the first batter of the game, Jacoby Ellsbury? You spear it … then you laugh. That all you got? Your third baseman and catcher stand around and fail to take charge on a pop-up? You camp under it, catch it, and then turn to them with arms open wide. You chuckle, shake your head at the silliness of it all.
You trade for David Price so he can stick it to a team in the biggest game of the year. You laugh. Your opponents wring their hands.
As Alex Rodriguez noted after the Yankees’ 4-2 loss to the Blue Jays, they must win the next two games. It’s that simple. Even manager Joe Girardi didn’t need to be talked into acknowledging the fact.
"You got to keep it close," said Girardi, who had Warren on an 85-pitch limit in just his second start since June and saw the right-hander bob and weave through eight batters and 35 pitches in the first inning. "We’re three back in the loss column. So, you hope to win and get it down to one … and we didn’t."
The Yankees were left to rue a pair of blown opportunities: with Rodriguez striking out and Brian McCann flying out with the bases loaded and one out in the third inning — Rodriguez just missed clearing the bases with a ball that was inches foul down the right-field line. Rodriguez and McCann were carved up again by Brett Cecil in the eighth, after Ellsbury singled to load the bases and Brett Gardner struck out on a pitch that was clearly high.
"Price has always been good, but it seems like he’s taken his game to a whole other level," Rodriguez said of the Blue Jays’ left-hander. "You face an elite pitcher and you usually get one crack. We had it tonight, and we came up short."
Girardi is trying to get back to the playoffs after a two-year absence that came on the heels of leading the team to a World Series win in his first season as Yankees manager, 2009. There have been so many outstanding managing jobs in the American League this season — A.J. Hinch with the Houston Astros, Jeff Bannister with the Texas Rangers and Paul Molitor with the Minnesota Twins, in particular — that Girardi probably won’t get the support for manager of the year. And that’s a shame.
True, general manager Brian Cashman has given him a high-salaried group, but it is a team that has too often seemed cobbled together.
Girardi spent spring training working in and around the fact ownership wanted Rodriguez out of sight and out of mind. He has survived injuries and assorted health concerns to slugger Mark Teixeira and pitchers CC Sabathia, Nathan Eovaldi and Masahiro Tanaka (the Yankees don’t have a pitcher who has yet logged 170 innings, which is remarkable), and has used a three-headed bullpen monster of Andrew Miller/Dellin Betances/Justin Wilson to maximum effect.
On his watch, 38-year-old Carlos Beltran conjured up 10, 11, nine and 15-game hitting streaks. With a GM who has, wisely, decided to hang on to an intriguing core of minor leaguers — the majors already know about 21-year-old starter Luis Severino and 22-year-old first baseman Greg Bird, while the scouts all know about six-foot-seven minor-league outfielder Aaron Judge, shortstop Jorge Mateo and third baseman Eric Jagielo — Girardi has made use of pitchers who have been shuttled back and forth between the majors and minors. He’ll need to do that again next season, because the Yankees only have $12 million coming off the books.
And so now they’ll run out Severino Tuesday night and Ivan Nova on Wednesday — the latter returning to the starting rotation after a demotion to the bullpen, forced back because of a hamstring injury suffered by Tanaka that will keep him out of this series.
Do not doubt the resilience of this Yankees team, but it is permissible to doubt whether they are up to the task of passing the Blue Jays. The guess here is they’re not.