Jays fall two games back of Yankees
PHILADELPHIA Once in a while, John Gibbons finds it fun to manage under National League rules.
On Tuesday night, he used 18 players in the Blue Jays’ 8- 5 win over the Phillies. He summoned three pinch- hitters, two in the pitcher’s spot.
A couple of his pitchers found themselves batting cleanup when they entered the game, but, of course, they never got to bat.
It was a bit of a novelty for Gibbons, but his button- pushing worked out well as he took advantage of a six- man bench, the deepest it has been all season.
“I do enjoy it, no doubt about it,” he said after Tuesday’s game.
It was definitely different in other ways in the finale of the two- game series. Gibbons had little opportunity for strategic fun in an ignominious 7- 4 loss to the cellardwelling Phillies.
Starting pitcher Mark Buehrle was awful, his quest for a 14th win done after four innings. His teammates compounded his misery with sloppy defence in the Phillies’ three- run first. The Jays’ celebrated offence fizzled.
Meanwhile, the Yankees won and moved two full games ahead of Toronto in the American League East standings.
The Jays might have been due for a steaming mess of this sort, having played exceedingly well while winning 13 of their last 16 games. But it came against a team with baseball’s worst record, at the beginning of a road trip that will also pit them against two teams that are much better — Los Angeles Angels and Texas Rangers, both from the AL West.
Edwin Encarnacion extended his hit streak to 16 games with a solo homer in the fifth.
The Jays’ only remaining series in a National League park comes Sept. 15- 17 in Atlanta.