Terrific start from J.A. Happ, Jays beat Yankees

Blue Jays 3 Yankees 1

That was quite the pitchers duel.

J.A. Happ pitched a terrific 7 innings. He gave up a solo homer to Starlin Castro, in the bottom of the first, but that was it for runs off our lefty. He allowed just 3 hits and 3 walks, with 5 strikeouts. He came out after 98 pitches. He was a little shaky in the 7th inning, giving up a walk and going 3-0 to Didi Gregorius, before getting him to ground out to end the inning, on the 8th pitch of the at bat.

CC Sabathia was at least as good, going 7th innings, allowing just 2 hits and 1 walk, with 7 strikeouts. But he gave up a 2-run single to Edwin Encarnacion, after Devon Travis reached on a 1-out error and Jose Bautista (single) and Josh Donaldson (walk) reached with 2 outs.

Then it became a bullpen game:

• Dellin Betances pitched a scoreless top of the 8th, despite Bautista legging out a double (after 99 mph pitch up and in).
• Gavin Floyd gave up a Jacoby Ellsbury leadoff single, that Devon Travis made a nice play to get to the ball, then threw it wide of first. Ruled a single. A ground out to second moved Ellsbury to second. Thankfully Aaron Hicks hit a fly ball right to Michael Saunders and Castro chased a pitch in the dirt (actually 2 pitches in the dirt) to strikeout.
• Aroldis Chapman came in for the Yankees for the top of the 9th. Saunders struck out after a 9 after an 8 pitch at bat (he swung at ball four at least twice. Smoak singled. Russell Martin struck out swinging at 3 101 mph fastballs. Kevin Pillar singled. And Devon Travis singled home Smoak. All three singles were hit the other way, which is about all you can do with a pitch that comes in at over 100 mph. Great job to get an insurance run against Chapman.
• Roberto Osuna came out for the save. He got Carlos Beltran and Alex Rodriguez to strikeout and for his 10th save.

Jays of the Day are Happ (.379 WPA), Floyd (.140) and Encarnacion (.129). I'm going to give one each to Travis (.089) and Osuna (.090) just because I'm in a good mood.

No Suckage Jays. Darwin Barney had the low mark at -092, for an 0 for 4 with a strikeout. But, I thought, he played a pretty nice shortstop and, as I said, we won and I'm in a good mood.

That gives us a 5-2 road trip. Pretty good, considering we still aren't hitting.

We had 568 comments in the weekday afternoon GameThread. Erik.t led us to victory. Great job sir.