The cruelty of the game of baseball was on full display on Saturday afternoon in the Bronx. The day began with the news that Giancarlo Stanton had injured his left calf, likely ending his season. Were that the only bad injury news of the day, the Yankees’ 4-3 loss to the Blue Jays would have just been a particularly annoying contest in which the Yankees stranded the tying run 90 feet away. Oh, well, I guess Toronto got an extra helping of magic dust in their morning protein.
But it was not, in fact,
the only bad injury news of the day. Ryan Weathers, who had been absolutely on fire in the second half, departed in the fourth inning with left forearm discomfort. We can only hope he avoids the worst-case scenario as the Bombers get ready for the season-series rubber match with the Jays tomorrow.
Toronto set the tone with three singles in the first inning—the latter of which scored a run courtesy of George Springer. But Trent Grisham gave the Yankees a great opportunity to quickly equalize and finally end that pernicious streak of games without scoring in the first inning. Grisham walked to lead off the effort against Dylan Cease, stole second, then took third on a groundout to give his teammates two good cracks at driving him in. Unfortunately, Heliot Ramos and Luis García Jr. both struck out, and the streak of first-inning futility grew to 21 consecutive games.
Then, the exact same thing happened in the second. Leadoff man Spencer Jones worked a walk, stole second without a throw, and took third on the first out. On cue, Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit a lazy pop to center and Austin Wells went down swinging. Hitting against Cease is obviously the furthest thing from easy—the next four innings and change would be further proof of that fact—but they should have gotten at least one one of those runners home from third. I’m sure it gave Cecil Fielder, who stopped by the YES booth in the second inning, more data points to complain about how hitting is somehow worse now, and we didn’t need that.
The entertainment value only further degraded from there. The Yankees were listless in the third, and then the Blue Jays added to their lead with another long inning. Charles McAdoo’s RBI single made it 2-0, then while pitching to Myles Straw, Weathers tumbled awkwardly off the mound on a pitch, appearing to tweak something in the process. Wells summoned Aaron Boone and the trainer, who promptly removed Weathers from the game after a brief meeting. The prognosis which came an inning later was vague yet menacing: “left forearm discomfort.”
Bad, bad, bad sign.
Weathers had entered this game with six consecutive quality starts since the All-Star Break, with a 1.98 ERA in 36.1 innings. The Jays made him labor, grabbing eight hits and forcing a lot of high-stress throws from a guy who who is already well past his career high in innings. With Cody Bellinger set to return tomorrow and Max Fried already throwing in preparation to return, the Yankees were set to get a little healthier. Now it’s not so certain.
By the fifth inning, the hit column read a staggering 10-0 in favor of the Jays. The 10th of those hits, a seeing-eye single up the middle by Nathan Lukes, plated a third Jays run. Even with all that, Cease allowed a pair of walks in the bottom half to give the Yankees a scoring opportunity with one out. Heck, it even put the tying run at the plate. José Caballero put a good swing on a ball and lined it hard toward left field—because the baseball gods were evidently out for blood today, it was caught at shortstop and briskly turned into a double play as George Lombard Jr. was dead to rights off second. That twin killing preserved the no-hit bid.
Cease worked a 1-2-3 to complete six hitless innings and carried on into the seventh before Jazz clubbed a two-out single to finally get the Yankees off the schneid. Cease, who the Jays were never going to ask to get nine innings from with the five walks to his account, nonetheless stayed in to face Wells, who ended the shutout bid as well with a single to the rally pigeons in right center field.
Reliever Spencer Miles took over from Cease and immediately plunked Caballero, loading the bases for Grisham. Trent worked the count full, but hit a routine grounder to Guerrero at first to kill the rally. The Jays would get that run back in short order, thanks to a towering second-deck home run by Nathan Lukes. That proved a crucial insurance run given what came next.
With a runner on first, García became the first man all season to take setup man Tyler Rogers deep, clubbing a first-pitch sinker to the second deck on a line. All of a sudden that Lukes homer was the difference; we were back to a one-run affair. It hardly seemed possible given how sluggish the Yankees were to begin, but this is what the Yanks-Jays season series has been. No one team has been able to get comfortably ahead of the other.
The Yankees had to go up against the league’s best closer this season to keep their hopes alive. Louis Varland, he of the 1.24 ERA and 28 saves in 29 chances, took the hill in the ninth. Jazz greeted him with a leadoff double to the right-center gap, putting the tying run in scoring position right away. Did we dare dream in the Bronx today?
Wells struck out looking on a pinpoint outside fastball—he challenged, and I thought for sure he was right. He, and I, were wrong. Caballero then grounded to third, and it was up to Grisham, who had previously failed to come through with the bases loaded. Trent again worked the count full, and Jazz ambled to third. Any hit would do the trick, but a picture-perfect changeup from Varland dipped under the barrel and sent Yankee fans home with a tough loss.
Whichever good-luck superstition you like to practice, add it to your routine for Weathers’ sake as we await further news on his injury. One last game between these two teams this season awaits on Sunday afternoon, with the season series tied at six wins apiece. Just about all of these games with the Jays have been agonizingly close affairs—I imagine this finale will be no different. Carlos Rodón will take the ball opposite former Angel José Soriano. Same time, same channel: 1:35 pm on YES.
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