New York Yankees Recap: Blue Jays win Series Finale 3-1

After a brief delay at the Rogers Centre, the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays were officially able to get underway with their Sunday matinee. It was a matchup between Drew Hutchinson (11-2, 5.21 ERA) and the phenom Luis Severino (0-1, 2.25 ERA), who was looking to earn his first major league win and help the Yankees polish off a three-game sweep of the second place Toronto Blue Jays.

Severino was cruising through the early parts of the ballgame with his fastball sitting at 97-mph, but thanks to a two-out error by Carlos Beltran in the bottom of the third on a dropped fly ball off the bat of Troy Tulowitzki, Toronto tacked on some early runs. Josh Donaldson lined in Tulowitzki on an RBI single and Jose Bautista followed up Donaldson with a two-run home run. All three runs were unearned, but the Blue Jays were leading 3-0 after three.

The official score keeper eventually ruled that Beltran’s dropped fly ball wasn’t an error, but that’s rather her nor there… but sorry fantasy owners.

Ellsbury pulled the Yankees within two after a solo home run in the bottom of the sixth off Drew Hutchinson, who was otherwise untouchable.

After a 1-2-3 sixth inning, Severino exited the ballgames after tossing 104 pitches. His final line on the day was 6.0 innings pitched, 5 hits, 3 earned runs (thanks to terrible score keeping), 3 walks and a career high 9 strike outs. If it weren’t for Carlos Beltran, you can make the argument that Severino might have exited the ball game with a 1-0 lead en route to his first major league victory, but I guess we’ll have to wait for that.

Brian McCann lined a two out double in the top of the seventh to chase Drew Hutchinson from the ballgame after a terrific performance. He tossed 6.2 innings of three hit baseball, allowing just one earned run while striking out five and walking one. Hutchinson was replaced by Brett Cecil, who of course, was able to get Carlos Beltran to pop out to centerfield to end the inning.

Chasen Shreve came on to pitch in the bottom of the seventh, and after giving up a walk and single to start the inning, the Blue Jays were set up with runners on first and second and no outs. Fortunately, Ben Revere bunted back to the mound and the Yankees were able to get the lead runner our at third.

Adam Warren came in to replace Shreve with runners on first and second with one out and was able to get Troy Tulowitzki to strike out and Jose Bautista to ground out to get the Yankees out of trouble.

Aaron Sanchez came on to pitch the top of the eighth inning and downed the Yankees in order on just 13 pitches.

In the bottom half of the eighth Warren pitched around a single off the bat of Encarnacion, and looked very impressive out of the Yankees pen.

Roberto Osuna nailed down the save for the Blue Jays and the Yankees now have just a .5 game lead on the Blue Jays atop the AL East, but are up two in the loss column with just 46 games remaining. The Yankees and Blue Jays will meet against seven times in September.

The Yankees will be back in action tomorrow night against the Minnesota Twins as they start a 10 game home stand. It’ll be Kyle Gibson (8-9, 3.75 ERA) against the veteran CC Sabathia (4-9, 5.23 ERA)

In other news, Michael Pineda is making his first rehab start since being placed on the DL, as he’s set to throw 45 pitches over in Trenton this evening. Also, Jeff Degano, who the Yankees selected with their second round pick in this years draft is making his minor league debut tonight with the Staten Island Yankees.

Be on lookout for coverage on both of them tomorrow on Yanks Go Yard!