RAIN DROPS
Yanks swept by Jays in soggy double-dip, fall 4½ back as East hopes fade
Yanks fall 4½ games back of Toronto after losing two (one in extras) to Jays on rainy day at Stadium. Playoff chances may rest on wild card.
REGRETS ARE nothing surprising on a day that goes as badly as Saturday went for the Yankees.
After taking a gut punch in the form of a doubleheader sweep by the AL East-leading Blue Jays, the Bombers found themselves looking back, mostly at the eighth inning of the opener, a 9-5 extrainning defeat. There, two things happened that stuck with them.
The first was a rare baserunning misjudgment by Brett Gardner. Jacoby Ellsbury was on second and Gardner on first with one out and Brian McCann at bat. Blue Jays reliever Brett Cecil threw a 1-0 pitch in the dirt that caromed off catcher Dioner Navarro and rolled down the first base line. Ellsbury took third on the wild pitch but Gardner hesitated and ended up staying on first base.
When McCann laced a single to center, Ellsbury scored to make it 5-5. Because Gardner didn’t advance to second — where, with his speed, he would have scored — the Yankees didn’t get the go-ahead run. “It bounced right in my direction and I couldn’t tell depth wise how far out it was from the catcher. By the time I realized how far away it was, I felt like it was a little too late,” Gardner said. “I obviously would’ve been on second when Mac hit that ball. I’d like to have that back.”
If anyone shouldn’t have had regrets on this day, it was Gardner. The left fielder had a solo homer in the opener and two three-run shots in the nightcap.
But the blunder on the bases overshadowed the power.
Said Joe Girardi, “There’s another situation — if he gets to second — Brian gets that hit (and) we score two runs. It’s unfortunate he wasn’t able to get there.”
The second thing that ended up leaving the Yankees shaking their heads was Girardi’s decision to pinch run for Alex Rodriguez after he followed McCann with a walk to load the bases, still with one out.
The Yankees didn’t score again and in the 10th inning with a runner on second and two out it was Dustin Ackley hitting in A-Rod’s spot and grounding out to end the
frame.
Girardi said he was “going for the win” when he put Jose Pirela in the game for A-Rod because he didn’t want Chase Headley to hit into an inning-ending double play.
“My thought process there is: I want someone if there’s a ground ball to get there and put a lot of pressure on (shortstop Ryan Goins),” Girardi explained. “(We’re) going for the win there. It comes back that (Rodriguez’s) at-bat comes up. . . . Really, it’s to break up the double play.”
Rodriguez’ two-run homer in the fourth — his team high-tying 31st of the season — had the Yanks up 4-1. In five of his last eight starts, A-Rod has hit a home run. Still, Girardi opted to keep McCann in the lineup as DH for the nightcap and hold Rodriguez for a pinch-hitting opportunity.
“At our ballpark, you think a lot about keeping lefthanded hitters in the lineup,” Girardi said.
McCann was 1-for-4 in the nightcap as the Jays completed the sweep, but sitting A-Rod wasn’t as regrettable as the two decisions that cost them the opener.