Yankees Rivalry Roundup: Blue Jays win fourth in a row

The Yankees offense continues to stutter, dropping the opener against the White Sox in pitiful fashion. Between yesterday and the day before, they’ve stranded 28 runners on the bases. Between the loss and the performance of their AL rivals, they find themselves back in sole possession of last place, 5.5 games back of the final Wild Card.

Toronto Blue Jays (64-50) 3, Cleveland Guardians (54-59) 1

This game featured two of the more impressive pitching performances you will see this season. Hyun Jin Ryu, making only his second start after missing most of last year and the first two-thirds of this season while recovering from Tommy John surgery, tossed four no-hit innings — certainly an encouraging sign from a pitcher whom you’d expect would have accumulated a lot of rust over the last year-plus. Unfortunately, he was forced to leave the contest with a right knee contusion after being struck by a come-backer.

Even then, he was left in the dust by his opponent, Guardians rookie Gavin Williams. In just his ninth big league start, he held the Blue Jays scoreless for seven innings, allowing just one hit and one walk while striking out a dozen. The Cleveland pitching factory seems to churn out impressive arm after impressive arm, which also explains why they were so willing to part with Aaron Civale at the deadline.

Thus this game came down to the bullpens, and surprisingly it was Toronto’s who came out on top. Enyel De Los Santos coughed up the lead in the eighth, surrendering a one-out single to Daulton Varsho followed by a two-run home run to Cavan Biggio. Bo Naylor responded in the bottom-half with an RBI single, but George Springer canceled it out with an RBI single of his own in the ninth. Cleveland had a chance in the bottom of the ninth loading the bases against new closer Jordan Hicks — acquired from the Cardinals days before the deadline — but Brayan Rocchio grounded out to end the game.

Texas Rangers (67-46) 5, Oakland Athletics (32-81) 3

The Rangers were in trouble early against the MLB-worst A’s but came back to grab the series opener. Oakland struck first with three runs in the third on a pair of doubles from Nick Allen and Zack Gelof, but Adolis García and Mitch Garver responded with their own back-to-back RBI doubles in the fourth to cut the deficit to 3-2. That was all either starting pitcher would give up, with Dane Dunning and Ken Waldichuk completing six innings apiece.

From there, Texas proceeded to complete the comeback with a combination of small ball and bad defense. They tied the game in the seventh on an error by reliever Kirby Snead before scoring the decisive runs in the eighth on a sac bunt, fielder’s choice, and sacrifice fly.

Other Matchups:

Minnesota Twins (60-54) 9, Detroit Tigers (49-63) 3

The Twins dropped eight runs on 10 hits in the first three innings against Detroit starter Joey Wentz to put this game to bed early. They scored four in the first on a Carlos Correa RBI double and Ryan Jeffers three-run home run, three in the second on a three-run blast from Correa, and one in the third on a Jordan Luplow RBI double. The Tigers managed to avoid the shutout thanks to a three-run homer by Nick Maton in the ninth, but it was purely consolation at that point.

Boston Red Sox (58-54) 6, Kansas City Royals (36-78) 2

This was a close affair throughout, the Red Sox striking first on a Masataka Yoshida sac fly in the third and Connor Wong RBI double in the fifth, but the Royals responded scoring a pair in the seventh on a Maikel Garcia RBI single and Bobby Witt Jr. RBI double. Thus, the game headed to the bottom of the ninth knotted at two, setting up a walk-off grand slam by Pablo Reyes to ensure the Yankees finish the day in sole possession of last place.

San Francisco Giants (62-51) 8, Los Angeles Angels (56-58) 3

The Angels carried a tenuous 3-2 lead into the ninth, only to witness an epic meltdown by closer Carlos Estévez. By the time the dust had settled on the inning, the Giants had scored six runs to hand LA their seventh straight loss immediately following a trade deadline that saw them add Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López from the White Sox and C.J. Cron and Randal Grichuk from the Rockies. To witness them go from the most active buyer to bombing out of the Wild Card race in the span of a week has been nothing short of remarkable, while also completely expected.