THE BRONX, NY – The Blue Jays’ failures against the New York Yankees continued Saturday afternoon, and for the third time this season they’ll have to attempt to beat back the brooms of the Bronx Bombers.
Here are three things that stood out to me about the latest loss to the Yanks:
PAY ATTENTION
The Blue Jays are looking for any kind of spark to get them going against the Yankees, a team they’ve had a terrible time with this season having lost eight times in nine tries. With two out in the very first inning, they might have had one against a struggling David Phelps, who had walked a pair, thrown 24 pitches and was behind in the count 3-1 to Adam Lind.
Phelps didn’t have to throw that critical pitch to Lind, though, because he spun around and picked Jose Bautista off at second to end the inning.
At best, that’s a deflating mental mistake by the Blue Jays’ on-field leader. At worst, it’s an unforgivable lack of focus that came at a huge time, though very early in the game. Any way you slice it, though, the Jays had a chance to take the early lead against a team that is 9-16 this season when it doesn’t score first, and having a runner picked off at second base seems to be about the most avoidable way to end an inning.
A MOMENT’S HESITATION
Brandon Morrow, making his first start in almost two weeks because of back spasms, retired the first six Yankees he faced on just 22 pitches then gave up a leadoff single to Jayson Nix in the bottom of the third.
The next batter was rookie David Adams, and he hit a comebacker to the mound that Morrow bobbled. The righty still had time to make a throw to second to start a double play, with shortstop Maicer Izturis waiting at the bag, but he eschewed the opportunity (perhaps needing to make sure he had a good grip and wasn’t going to throw the ball away) and took the sure out at first instead.
Austin Romine then flied out, which would have ended the inning had the double play been turned, but the inning continued for Brett Gardner to open the scoring with an RBI single to centre. Robinson Cano followed with a Yankee Stadium Special two-run homer, the first of his two two-run bombs on the day.
UGLINESS AT THE END
Edwin Encarnacion had a Yankee Stadium Special of his own in the eighth inning to draw the Blue Jays back to within three, but the Bronx Bombers put the game away in the bottom of that frame with a lot of help from the visitors.
Darren Oliver came out of the bullpen for his first appearance in exactly a week, and got started by striking out Cano and getting Vernon Wells to hit a grounder to shortstop. Izturis didn’t field the grounder cleanly, though, and then airmailed his throw over Lind’s head at first base for an error. The next hitter, Travis Hafner took Oliver deep.
Following the Hafner homer, Lyle Overbay hit a weak dribbler up the first-base line and Lind went over to field it but went to tag Overbay before he had the ball in his glove and wound up leaving the ball on the ground. The next hitter was Curtis Granderson, who hit a grounder to Lind that was fielded cleanly and Lind made a good, strong throw to second in an attempt to start an inning-ending double play.
Izturis made a return throw to first, but there was really no point because Oliver was late getting over to cover. Granderson would have been safe even had Oliver been standing there waiting for the throw, but that’s not the point. The point is that it had been a couple of weeks since "Yakety Sax" was the background music for the Blue Jays, but there was it was once again on Saturday afternoon.
Just remember: baby steps. Long, slow climb.