THROWING IT ALL AWAY
Headley’s gaffes doom CC as Yanks’ hopes take another hit
It was Wednesday morning and more than a quarter of the regular season still remained. To Joe Girardi, the date of the Yankees’ f inal game still hadn’t been determined.
“I think it is [a realistic goal] to make the playoffs,” Girardi said. “I like what we have here. I know there’s a lot of inexperience and we’ve had some injuries to our pitching staff and we’ve had some players traded away, but we’re going for this. I mean, that’s what we’re doing. I think you see the fight in the guys and we believe.”
The influx of young, impactful bats has produced the most exciting stretch of the Yankees’ season, but September still looks like it will be stripped of all suspense.
Though Gary Sanchez’s absurdly hot-hitting stretch continued with his fourth home run in four games and fellow rookie Aaron Judge added two hits, the Yankees couldn’t overcome CC Sabathia’s inconsistency and a pair of defensive mistakes by Chase Headley, resulting in a 7-4 loss to the Blue Jays in The Bronx.
On Tuesday night, the Yankees (61-59) entered a rain delay up 5-0 and in position to win their sixth game in seven days, but now head west for a six-game trip with two straight losses and the second AL wild-card spot fading from view.
“There’s no reason we should’ve given up more than four [runs],” Girardi said. “We had a tough day defensively and it cost us.”
Sabathia ( 7-10) was either a wrecking ball or a helpless building, becoming the first Yankee to ever record 12 strikeouts — his most since June 7, 2012 — and allow at least seven runs in the same game. Searching for his first back-to-back wins since mid-June, the southpaw started sharp and struck out three of the first four hitters he faced, but the 36-year-old put the Yankees in a three-run hole in the second inning.
Sabathia needed little help from his defense, then got little of it when he needed it. Trailing 3-2 in the fifth inning, Headley made a poor decision by trying to get Devon Travis on a force out at second. Then the Yankees third baseman gave the Blue Jays another extra out with a bad throw to first after he stepped on third for a force out; because he had gotten the force out, it wasn’t ruled an error.
Russell Martin then hit an RBI single, with Toronto taking a 7-2 lead on Melvin Upton Jr.’s three-run homer two batters later.
“Those guys, they’re one of the best offensive clubs in the league and they made us pay for it,” Headley said. “It was a big part of the game and unfortunately I wasn’t able to come up and make the play.”
Featuring a new-look lineup with Sanchez and Judge batting fourth and fifth, respectively, the Yankees’ offense hit three solo home runs through seven innings against J.A. Happ (17-3), the major leagueleader in wins.
Following an RBI single by Judge in the eighth inning, Didi Gregorius stepped to the plate as the tying run, but struck out to end the inning.
The final opportunity was gone and the Yankees had given too many away.
“We know t hat we can’t give them extra base runners or extra o ut s because they can turn that into big innings and they did it to us [the past two days],” Girardi said. “It really hurt us.”