NEW YORK – The little mistakes that cost the Toronto Blue Jays so dearly in April have resurfaced the past two days in the Bronx, shifting their struggles against the New York Yankees from concerning discrepancy to risky liability.
Saturday’s 7-2 loss moved them to 1-8 this season against the American League East leaders, including 0-6 at Yankee Stadium, and by continually squandering the chance to gain ground in head-to-head matchups, the Blue Jays are incrementally ceding control over their own fate.
After Sunday’s series finale, when R.A. Dickey takes on CC Sabathia, the Blue Jays will have only nine games left against the Yankees, none until Aug. 20-22 in New York, and they don’t want to be in a position where they need to run the table.
While lots of season remains, the AL East standings look significantly different if the Blue Jays play the Yankees at a more level pace.
“Yankee Stadium is always a tough place to play, regardless,” manager John Gibbons said. “They’ve taken it to us pretty good here.”
The dagger in their latest setback came in the third inning, when Maicer Izturis and Emilio Bonifacio opened the frame with singles but Melky Cabrera promptly hit into a double play and after Jose Bautista walked, Edwin Encarnacion struck out to end it.
In the bottom of the inning, Jayson Nix led off with a single and David Adams followed with a comebacker that Brandon Morrow knocked down and though he had lots of time to get Nix at second, he opted for the sure out at first.
After an Austine Romine fly out, Brett Gardner’s single scored Nix to open the scoring and on the next pitch Robinson Cano ripped a two-run shot to open up a 3-0 lead the Yankees wouldn’t relinquish.
“Out of the corner of my eye I saw that he was probably still far enough to get him at second,” Morrow said of the Adams comebacker. “But you get crossed up mentally I guess when you drop the ball like that and my first instinct was first base.”
There were other bad plays, too – Bautista getting picked off at second by David Phelps with two on and two out in the first, and Adam Lind ahead in the count, for instance – and ultimately more frustration against the Yankees.
“You can’t do that and expect to win, but on the same note, if you score two runs in two games you’re probably not going to win too many either,” Gibbons said. “Phelps did a nice job and kept us off-balance. We did have that inning we got picked off and had a chance to do something, but other than that, he held us in check pretty good.”
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WHERE THINGS STAND: The Blue Jays (17-26) are 11-31 at the new Yankee Stadium since its opening, the worst record of any team with a minimum of 30 games at the venue. Overall, they’ve lost 19 of their last 25 games against the Yankees (27-16), and are now 10 games behind the division leaders.
The Yankees are 18-0 when scoring first this season.
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THE ARMS: Brandon Morrow, making his first start since throwing eight innings of two-run ball against the Seattle Mariners on May 5 due to neck and back spasms, wasn’t as bad as his line looked but wasn’t his dominant self, either.
The right-hander allowed five runs on seven hits in five innings, walking none but striking out five. Robinson Cano was his nightmare in this one, crushing two-run homers against him in the third and again in the fifth.
“I felt like I threw a lot better than what the scoreboard indicated,” said Morrow, who felt fine physically. “The New York Robinson Canos got me. He was the whole ballgame.”
The first homer came on what Morrow described as a good splitter, “I’m just unfortunate that the wall is 314 out there. He put a good swing on it but it was a good pitch and anywhere else that might be not even to the wall.”
The second homer came on the seventh pitch of the at-bat and fourth straight slider Morrow threw to Cano, trying to finish him off after starting the count 2-0.
“I showed him too many sliders,” Morrow said. “It wasn’t a great pitch, it wasn’t a terrible pitch … I overthrew it a little bit, I was trying to get it down and in, and it just spun a little bit too much.”
The Yankees put things away in the eighth with some more help from the Blue Jays, as shortstop Maicer Izturis’s throwing error set the stage for Travis Hafner’s two-run shot off Darren Oliver. Adam Lind then booted Lyle Overbay’s weak roller to first, but Oliver avoided further damage.
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THE BATS: Unlike Friday, when Hiroki Kuroda kept them under wraps, the Blue Jays had some chances in this one but wasted them time and again.
They had two on and one out in the first but J.P. Arencibia struck out before Jose Bautista was picked off to end that threat, the first two batters reaching accomplished nothing in the third, Adam Lind’s one-out double was cashed in by a Colby Rasmus single in the fourth but he was stranded after another one-out two-bagger in the sixth, while Melky Cabrera’s one-out double in the fifth was also wasted.
They didn’t score again until the eighth, when Edwin Encarnacion’s solo shot cut the Yankees lead to 5-2.
