{"id":150418,"date":"2025-07-04T03:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T03:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/150418\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T03:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T03:04:13","slug":"yankees-suffer-four-game-sweep-to-blue-jays-fall-to-second-place-in-al-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/150418\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees suffer four-game sweep to Blue Jays, fall to second place in AL East"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time in nearly three months, the Yankees<\/a> have fallen out of first place altogether.<\/p>\n

Thursday night\u2019s 8-5 loss in Toronto capped a four-game sweep by the division-leading Blue Jays and dropped the Yankees into a tie for second place in the American League East.<\/p>\n

Toronto\u2019s George Springer crushed a pair of two-run home runs and finished the series 7-for-14 with four homers and 11 RBI.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first time since April 13 that the Yankees (48-39) haven\u2019t owned at least a share of first place. They enter this weekend\u2019s Subway Series having lost 14 of their last 20 games.<\/p>\n

Making matters worse Thursday was the early departure of starter Clarke Schmidt, who exited after three innings and 55 pitches due to right forearm tightness<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Schmidt allowed three runs on four hits \u2014 including the first of Springer\u2019s blasts \u2014 before leaving the game.<\/p>\n

The right-handed Schmidt has been among the Yankees\u2019 top arms this season, pitching to a 3.32 ERA in 14 starts.<\/p>\n

His 28.1 consecutive scoreless innings last month marked the longest such stretch by a Yankees starter since 1961, but he\u2019s allowed seven runs in six innings since the streak ended.<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s game was tied, 3-3, when right-hander Clayton Beeter relieved Schmidt to begin the bottom of the fourth.<\/p>\n

Toronto took the lead for good in that inning when Nathan Lukes won a 14-pitch battle against Beeter by chopping a two-run double down the third-base line.<\/p>\n

The lefty-swinging Lukes fell behind 0-2 in that at-bat before fouling off eight two-strike pitches from Beeter. His go-ahead hit came on a 97-mph fastball well above the strike zone.<\/p>\n

The Yankees trailed, 6-3, going into the seventh, and an RBI double by Jazz Chisholm Jr. and a run-scoring groundout by Anthony Volpe made it a one-run game.<\/p>\n

But with runners at the corners and two outs, pinch-hitter Giancarlo Stanton tapped the ball back to reliever Chad Green on a first-pitch slider to extinguish the scoring threat.<\/p>\n

Springer\u2019s second home run came in the eighth inning against Luke Weaver, giving Toronto a pair of insurance runs.<\/p>\n

The Yankees had 12 hits but went 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position and left 12 on base. That continued a series-long trend for the Yankees, who finished just 9-for-50 (.180) with runners in scoring position and stranded 40 baserunners during the four-game sweep.<\/p>\n

A bright spot for the Yankees was the return of Trent Grisham, who started Thursday for the first time since leaving Monday\u2019s game with left hamstring tightness.<\/p>\n

Grisham hit a second-inning solo home run against Blue Jays starter Chris Bassitt. It was the 16th homer of the season for Grisham, who is now one shy of his career high.<\/p>\n

The Yankees also got four hits from Jasson Dom\u00ednguez.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays walked Aaron Judge three times, including intentionally in the eighth. Judge was walked eight times in the series, including five times intentionally.<\/p>\n

The Yankees led the AL East by seven games on May 28, but their summer swoon has dropped them a game behind the Blue Jays (49-38) and into a tie with the Tampa Bay Rays (48-39) for second place. The Yankees were in sole possession of the AL East lead from April 14 until Wednesday, when the Blue Jays tied them atop the division.<\/p>\n

With a 5-2 edge in the season series, Toronto holds the tiebreaker over the Yankees, too.<\/p>\n

Thursday capped the Blue Jays\u2019 third-ever four-game sweep of the Yankees and their first in Toronto.<\/p>\n

The Yankees now set their sights on the Subway Series, with a three-game set against the Mets at Citi Field set to begin on Friday afternoon. After losing 14 of 17 games, the Mets have won two in a row.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time in nearly three months, the Yankees have fallen out of first place altogether. Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[8125,5,377,1216,311,4,1690,62,2548,2547,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-150418","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-yankees","8":"tag-al-east","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-blue-jays","11":"tag-clarke-schmidt","12":"tag-george-springer","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-yankees","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkyankees","18":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114792751291511756","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}