Yankees’ comeback falls short, lose stupid game to the Blue Jays

You know, CC Sabathia has put together a pretty good year for a 38-year-old with a degenerative knee condition. However you slice it, 2018 has been his best season in years and he deserves recognition for that. He looked gassed in this game though, and dug the Yankees into an early hole. The offense almost came back from that deficit, but just didn’t have enough to win the game.

Sabathia had a terrific first inning, throwing just six pitches against the first three batters. However, the wheels fell off for the southpaw after that. Randal Grichuk deposited a first pitch slider into the stands above the bullpen to put Toronto on the board in the second inning. With one out, Teoscar Hernandez hit an infield single, Danny Jansen managed to dump a fly ball into shallow left, and Aledmys Diaz knocked in a run. Sabathia struck out Richard Urena, but Lourdes Gurriel Jr. hit an RBI past a diving Neil Walker (and a diving Didi Gregorius) to make it a 3-0 game.

The Yankees offense remained frustrating as ever today. They had the opportunity to get back into the game in the second and wasted it. Sean Reid-Foley issued back-to-back walks to Gregorius and Gary Sanchez, then Gleyber Torres singled to load the bases. This team had the bases loaded with ZERO outs, and failed to push even one run across home plate. Instead, the rookie pitcher proceeded to strike out Walker, Luke Voit, and Brett Gardner to end the threat. Just awful.

Competing to see who could be worse—Sabathia or the offense—Sabathia’s outing went from bad to disastrous in the third. After giving up yet another home run to Grichuk, Kevin Pillar got in on the action with a solo shot of his own. That was enough to knock Sabathia out of the game. He surrendered five earned runs through 2.1 innings with just two strikeouts.

On the plus side, the bullpen shut the Blue Jays down...for awhile. Chad Green and Jonathan Holder combined for 3.2 scoreless innings! Tommy Kahnle took over in the seventh, though, and it was all bad. He clearly still hasn’t figured things out. Two hits and a walk loaded the bases with zero outs for Toronto. It almost looked like Kahnle would be able to work some of the Reid-Foley’s earlier magic and escape the jam unscathed. He induced a ground out and recorded a strikeout, but a bloop single off the bat of Diaz allowed two runs to score. Stephen Tarpley allowed another run to score before the top half ended.

The Bombers finally got on the board in the sixth thanks to a leadoff home run by Gregorius. They loaded the bases and failed to score again before finally mounting their comeback in the seventh. Giancarlo Stanton kicked things off with a deep home run to left field, and Gregorius followed with another solo shot. With two on and two out, the Blue Jays turned to our old friend Tyler Clippard, and he didn’t disappoint. Voit walked to load the bases, and Miguel Andujar crushed a grand slam to left to make it a 7-8 game.

Unfortunately, the comeback was too little, too late. Hicks worked a one-out walk and got into scoring position in the eighth, but Gregorius popped out and Sanchez struck out. They went down quietly in the bottom of the ninth.

Lance Lynn will get the ball tomorrow as the Yankees look to salvage the series. The game starts at 1:05 ET on YES.