As you all know well by now, Jose Bautista played like himself last night and the Blue Jays got the best of Bartolo Colon in the sixth inning. Despite Robinson Cano's three RBI, the Yankees fell short by the score of 7-3.
However, today is a new day! The Yankees will look to even the series with Toronto, move back to five games over .500, and possibly move into sole possession of first place in the American League East with a victory tonight. Who better to lead you to these three marks than the ace of the staff, CC Sabathia? No one.
Yankee starting lineup tonight: 1) Derek Jeter DH, 2) Curtis Granderson CF, 3) Mark Teixeira 1B, 4) Alex Rodriguez 3B, 5) Robinson Cano 2B, 6) Russell Martin C, 7) Nick Swisher RF, 8) Brett Gardner LF, 9) Eduardo Nunez SS.
Blue Jays starting lineup tonight: 1) Yunel Escobar SS, 2) Corey Patterson LF, 3) Jose Bautista RF, 4) Juan Rivera 1B, 5) J.P. Arencibia C, 6) Aaron Hill 2B, 7) Edwin Encarnacion DH, 8) Rajai Davis CF, 9) John McDonald 3B.
Starting pitcher breakdowns and notes about the game are past the jump. Follow me!
Sabathia takes the mound for the Yankees and has had relatively great success against the Toronto Blue Jays throughout his career, posting a 9-3 record in 12 starts. Sabathia is coming off, arguably, his best start of the season against the Baltimore Orioles, in which he pitched eight shutout innings with 109 pitches. Remarkably, he averages exactly seven innings of pitching in his appearances against the Blue Jays, so expect him to go deep tonight. His ERA against the Jays is 3.11, with 77 strikeouts in those 84 innings. This will be his first start against Toronto this year.
Opposing CC is the talented young lefty Ricky Romero. Romero has gotten off to a great start in 2011, with an ERA (3.11) nearly matching his xFIP (3.01). The most amazing turnaround for Romero has come in the amount of line drives he surrenders. Over the span of his short career, he averages letting up 18% line drives. This year? Merely 12.2%. He's inducing more fly outs this year, which has helped him tremendously. He's also trusting his fastball, using it 64.1% of the time compared to 49.3% of the time last year. In his career, he's been mediocre against the Yankees. His stats are as follows: seven starts, 3-2 record and a 5.31 ERA. The Yankees have taken him yard seven times, tied with Boston for most of any team (although he's pitched six more innings against Boston than he has against New York).
Here's baseball reference with a full preview of tonight's game.
Sabathia career vs. Blue Jay hitters can be found here.
Romero career vs. Yankee hitters can be found here.
A few notes about tonight:
- If Mariano Rivera pitches tonight, he will be the only pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball to appear in 1,000 games for a single team. This stat courtesy of Yankees.com.
- Comes as no surprise that Jorge Posada is benched against the lefty Romero. He's 0-26 against lefties this year with six walks.
- Nick Swisher is back in the lineup after sitting the past two days. Maybe this will be the jump start he needs. In 48 plate appearances this year against lefites, Swisher is batting .333 (13 for 39) with six walks and six RBI.