The Toronto Blue Jays are riding high after defeating the Houston Astros in two straight to close out a series win over the weekend. That leaves them in first place in the AL East—half a game up on the surprisingly resilient Baltimore Orioles.
Toronto (67-51) now heads to the Bronx for a three-game set versus the new-look New York Yankees (60-57), who despite selling off pieces at the trade deadline are just 4.5 games out of the second wild card. The Jays hold a 7-2 series lead on their East rivals this season.
Here’s a look at the probably pitchers, plus a few key storylines:
Monday, August 15 — 7:05 p.m. ET
R.A. Dickey vs. Chad Green
Tuesday, August 16 — 7:05 p.m. ET
Marco Estrada vs. Michael Pineda
Wednesday, August 17 — 1:05 p.m. ET
J.A. Happ vs. CC Sabathia
No A-Rod, no problem
Yankees fans bid adieu to Alex Rodriguez Friday night, and the team did so officially on Saturday afternoon. That marks the fourth major name to leave the roster in the past month, after Carlos Beltran, Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller were all shipped out at the trade deadline.
But, surprisingly, the Yankees have stayed competitive. Before Sunday’s loss to the Rays, the Yanks were riding a four-game winning streak. They also marked their third straight series victory after beating the Boston Red Sox in two out of three at Fenway last week, and taking two more wins against the Indians in Cleveland before that.
Prospect parkers
Upon waiving Rodriguez, who was hitting .200 with an incredibly low .598 OPS and only nine home runs in 225 at-bats, the Yankees called up prospects Aaron Judge and Tyler Austin. So how’d the young’uns do in terms of filling the shoes of a legend (if a certainly tarnished one)? Not bad. The two rookies hit back-to-back homers in their first MLB plate appearances, becoming the first tandem in history to do so.
And they weren’t done. Judge, a 24-year-old right fielder, followed up with another home run in his first at-bat on Sunday, making him only the second Yankee to homer in each of his first two games, according to Elias Sports Bureau. (Joe Lefebvre is the other.)
More new blood
Monday night the Jays will face Chad Green, a Yankees hurler with just 27.1 innings of MLB work under his belt. Of Toronto’s current lineup, only Melvin Upton Jr. has faced Green—he went 0-for-3 against him back in June when he was still with the San Diego Padres.
Green has been in and out of the Yankees’ rotation all season. He returned to the starting lineup for the first time in nearly a month on Aug. 3, giving up three earned runs in 3.2 innings, but hasn’t pitched since.
Game of (almost no) runs
Jays hitters have struggled against the Yankees this season, posting a sub-.700 OPS on the whole. That said, they’ve still managed to score in excess of four runs per game against New York (their season average is 4.8 per). They’re also 3-0 in games started by Michael Pineda and CC Sabathia, the final two pitchers they’ll face this week. The Bronx Bombers failed to provide any run support in those games, a kind of running theme this season as they currently sit 22nd in MLB in runs scored.
Brightening the Jays’ picture, and mitigating the injuries to Jose Bautista and Kevin Pillar, is the strong recent hitting of four guys: Edwin Encarnacion, Devon Travis, Troy Tulowitzki and Russell Martin. Each is putting up big numbers in August, and the latter just had his best series of the season over the weekend, posting two home runs and netting a highlight-reel grab.
Six-man rotation watch
Much has been made of the Blue Jays’ decision to move to a six-man rotation at least in part to limit Aaron Sanchez‘s innings. Some worried adding trade-deadline acquisition Francisco Liriano into the mix and giving everyone extra days of rest would throw off routines. But how does the small sample of outings so far compare to the season norms for Toronto’s starters?
While Liriano has not been good (seven earned runs allowed in 11.2 innings), the rest of the rotation has posted a 3.63 ERA since his arrival. That’s dead on Jays’ starters’ season-long ERA of 3.64.
In other words, they haven’t been affected thus far, even though Sanchez and Marco Estrada have had much-fretted-over sub-par outings. This will be interesting to watch moving forward, especially if Liriano continues to struggle.
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