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TORONTO – Through a haze of their own misplays and missteps, the Yankees could clearly see a confident Blue Jays club take full advantage of those mistakes.
“They make things happen. They put the ball in play, they run hard out of the box,’’ said Aaron Judge, calling the first place Blue Jays “just kind of a complete team.’’
On the other side, the Yankees were kind of a complete mess on Wednesday night, committing four errors and failing at things that won’t appear in your box score during Toronto’s 8-4 win.
So ends the regular season chapter of the Yankees’ horrific road show here, losing six of seven games at Rogers Centre since June 30 and falling four games behind the AL East-leading Jays.
“I think it’s in this building we haven’t played well. Just two bad series,’’ said manager Aaron Boone. “We’ve given them too many outs, and it’s cost us.’’
The thing is, it’ll keep costing the Yankees – maybe cost them a pennant, or a World Series – if certain items aren’t buttoned up, or if certain inferior defenders are out there in key games.
On the Yankees’ defense: ‘We’ve got to tighten it up’
And this was a big game for late July; the Yanks could’ve gone home this weekend to play the Phillies and Rays with just a two-game divisional deficit entering Friday night.
But they had Ben Rice at first base, Jasson Dominguez in left field and J.C. Escarra behind the plate, compromising three defensive spots, and it showed.
That, and some ill fortune – like Cody Bellinger losing a ball in the twilight – contributed to another preventable Yankee loss, and a repeat of familiar phrases.
“Defense…is about putting in the work” and maintaining an aggressive mindset, Boone said. “Last thing I want us to do is get tight and play to not make a mistake.
“We’ve got to obviously tighten it up,’’ said Boone. “Confident we will. We’ll continue to work at it, we have good defenders but tonight was a rough night for us.’’
Max Fried: ‘Just didn’t do my job’
In the fifth, Toronto took a 4-2 lead by scoring twice without benefit of a hit, starting with a pair of one-out walks by Max Fried.
A not-so-wild pitch got by Escarra before Fried, a Gold Glove defender, made a quick play to field Vladimir Guerrero’s topper toward the third base side.
But Fried had to contort himself to throw home, “so I just tried to throw around’’ Davis Schneider, who scored on the errant throw, compounded as Escarra whiffed on a swipe-tag attempt.
That allowed the hustling veteran George Springer to score from second base.
“Frankly, just didn’t do my job,’’ said a glum Fried, charged with four runs in 5.1 innings, pitching 11 days after suffering a blister to his left index finger.
Over his last four starts, Fried has posted a 6.52 ERA, with nine walks in 19.1 innings.
Fried also suffered a small cut to his left pinkie late in Wednesday’s start, a product of throwing his curveball, but said it’s fine.
“Just can’t happen,’’ Fried said of his three walks Wednesday. “Got to be able to make them put it in play and earn it.’’
Aaron Judge: ‘It’s one of the things we’ve got to clean up’
And sometimes they didn’t earn it, including Ernie Clement’s sixth inning fly to right got above the lights, where Bellinger lost sight of it, falling for a one-out triple.
Bellinger felt like that misplay “kind of started it all’’ going off the rails, as Myles Straw followed with a go-ahead, two-strike RBI double to knock out Fried.
Two batters later, Rice’s two-out error on a groundball put the Jays ahead 6-4.
Judge had evened the score with a two-run homer in the sixth off starter Chris Bassitt, who in 7.1 innings yielded three hits – all of them homers, including solo shots by Jasson Dominguez and Anthony Volpe.
In contrast to that all-or-nothing offense, the Blue Jays kept putting the ball in play, taking the extra base and making the Yankees pay dearly for their misdeeds.
“That’s one of the things we’ve got to clean up,’’ said the Yankees captain, putting an emphasis on an inner awareness to “refocus and just tighten it up’’ defensively.
“We give any team extra outs, it’s not going to go well for us,’’ said Judge.