ALL FOR NOTHIN’
Yanks come back from 6 down, lose to Jays in 9th:
TORONTO — If you hadn’t seen any of Tuesday night’s Yankees-Blue Jays game, all you needed was one look at Joe Girardi’s face for a complete postgame recap.
Girardi was fuming after his team’s sloppy 7-6 loss to Toronto, a game that saw the Yankees erase a six-run deficit only to give up the game-winner on a throwing error in the ninth inning.
“At times it’s hurt us during the course of the season,” Girardi said of his team’s defense. “It’s something that clearly we need to do a better job at.”
The Yankees were charged with only one error in the loss, but Derek Jeter made a pair of poor decisions in the fifth inning to help the Blue Jays build a six-run lead.
Two Toronto errors — the Jays had three altogether — helped the Yankees tie the game with a five-run seventh as fans watched a game that could have been mistaken at times for a rookie league matchup.
“It was sloppy on both sides,” Mark Teixeira said. “That was an ugly game to watch. If you were a fan, you should get your money back. But ugly games happen, and we just didn’t come out on top.”
The Yankees have now lost four in a row — two each against the Orioles and Blue Jays — erasing the progress they made with their four-game winning streak last week against the same two AL East foes.
“It’s inconsistency,” Girardi said. “The one thing you want is consistency with your club.”
Mark Buehrle’s decade-long winless streak against the Yankees continued as he allowed four runs over 62/ innings.
Meanwhile, David Phelps was unable to build on his last two superb starts, giving up six runs on eight hits over five innings. Dioner Navarro’s three-run shot in the fourth gave Toronto its first lead, then Jeter’s two gaffes in the fifth looked to have blown things open.
Phelps had runners on first and second with two out when Edwin Encarnacion hit what appeared to be an easy inning-ending grounder to Jeter. The Captain looked to throw to second, but Jose Reyes had gotten a great jump from first and was going to beat the throw.
Jeter looked toward third, but Yangervis Solarte — who was playing deep — wasn’t covering. Jeter then tried to rush a throw to first, but Encarnacion beat it out, loading the bases on what the official scorer somehow ruled an infield single.
“Usually when the ball is in the hole, I’ll go to second or third a lot of times,” Jeter said. “It was the wrong decision, obviously.
“If you could go back, you’d just throw it to first base.”
Colby Rasmus made the Yankees pay for Jeter’s blunder, lining a hard two-run single off the right-field wall. Rasmus got caught in a rundown between first and second, but with Jeter half-focused on the runner at third, Rasmus beat him back to first as Encarnacion scored to make it 6-0.
“I made the decision to go after him and he beat me back to the bag,” Jeter said.
Jeter homered to left to lead off the sixth, then Brian Roberts belted a tworun shot to left off Buehrle in the seventh to make it 6-3. Dustin McGowan relieved Buehrle, but Jacoby Ellsbury’s single and a throwing error made it a two-run game before Reyes made a throwing error that allowed the Yankees to tie the game.
Dellin Betances escaped a basesloaded jam in the eighth to push the game to the ninth.
Reyes led off the ninth with a double to right off Adam Warren (1-4), and then Melky Cabrera put down a bunt toward third base. Solarte charged the ball and made a quick throw to first, whizzing the ball by Teixeira to end the game.
“Good teams capitalize on mistakes,” Jeter said. “They did, we capitalized on a mistake, then they came back and won the game. We would have liked to have won it, but we have to play a little bit better.”