Entering play on the second day of June, the Toronto Blue Jays stood 5 1/2 games behind the New York Yankees in the American League East.
On the second day of July, the Blue Jays can move into a tie for first place in the division with a victory over the Yankees in Toronto on Wednesday night.
The Blue Jays have won the first two games of a four-game series between the clubs. After Toronto’s 12-5 win on Tuesday, the Yankees fell to 6-12 in their past 18 games.
New York will ask rookie right-hander Will Warren (5-4, 4.37 ERA), making his first career start against Toronto, to snap the losing streak. Warren went 2-1 with a 2.86 ERA over five starts in June.
He will oppose Blue Jays veteran right-hander Jose Berrios (4-3, 3.26), who is set to make his 15th career start against the Yankees and is 4-8 with a 4.89 ERA in prior meetings. Berrios faced the Yankees on April 25, throwing 5 1/3 shutout innings, but didn’t figure into the decision in a 4-2 Toronto win.
Warren’s first task will be to stop George Springer, who had a huge day for the Jays in front of a sellout Canada Day crowd on Tuesday, hitting a grand slam, a solo homer and a two-run single for a career-best seven RBIs.
His second homer of the game, off reliever Luke Weaver, was the ninth grand slam of his career, the second this season and his 100th homer with Toronto. His solo shot was against starter Max Fried.
“What he did today was pretty amazing,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “It was kind of a special feeling. That’s a really good reliever in Weaver, and it was just an awesome swing. ”
Andres Gimenez added a three-run homer for Toronto.
The Blue Jays have played their past two games against the Yankees without shortstop Bo Bichette, who reported considerable improvement on Tuesday from discomfort in his right knee.
“We believe in each other, and we believe in whoever is in the lineup to do what we need us to do as a team,” Springer said. “We’ve played together. We’ve kind of embraced that next-man-up mentality.”
Toronto recalled Leo Jimenez from Buffalo on Tuesday and optioned outfielder Jonatan Clase to the Triple-A team. Jimenez started at shortstop and was 0-for-2 before being replaced by a pinch hitter.
The Yankees continued to struggle offensively. They were 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position on Tuesday, when they stranded 11 runners.
Jasson Dominguez had a two-run single in the first inning and three RBIs for the game.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said a lack of timely hitting is just one of many worries through a season.
“I have concerns about everything when we’re going great, when we’re not, and everything in between,” Boone said. “I try to evaluate it not emotionally every day. The past two nights, with runners in scoring position, feel like we’ve swung the bat pretty well and haven’t got results.”
New York was 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position in a 5-4 loss in the series opener on Monday.
“We’re not playing our best baseball by any means,” Weaver said. “All of our facets have to line up. … We’ve just run into a buzz saw where we’re not quite doing that as well as we’d like to.”
In each of the first two games, J.C. Escarra was called for catcher’s interference that contributed to a big inning for Toronto.
New York catcher Austin Wells has missed the first two games of the series after undergoing tests for circulation problems in a finger. He could return on Wednesday.
The Yankees are optimistic about center fielder Trent Grisham’s tweaked left hamstring that forced him out of the opener in the fifth inning. He said that it felt better on Tuesday, and he could avoid the injured list.
–Field Level Media
