Jays Sweep the Yankees!!!

Blue Jays 6 Yankees 4

Eight wins in a row!! And a four-game sweep of the Yankees in New York. I went to a four-game Jays series in New York a few years ago, and we were swept. It was miserable.

The Jays are now a half-game behind the Yankees for the second Wild Card spot. And just 1.5 back of the Red Sox.

What a great effort by Jose Berríos tonight.

6.2 innings, 5 hits, 2 earned, 2 walks, and 8 strikeouts.

The 2 earned were kind of unfortunate. With one out in the sixth, Aaron Judge had a check-swing roller that was going down the third base line, Kevin Smith was in position to make a play on the ball, but it hit the base and went over him. What should have been an out became a single. The next batter, Anthony Rizzo, homered on a pitch that missed its target. It was meant to be outside, it came in. Mistakes happen, but Berríos didn’t make many tonight.

He threw 109 pitches, coming out with a runner on first. He wanted to stay in the game, but I thought it was a good move, 109 pitches is a lot.

Joakim Soria came in and got Gio Urshela to strike out.

Tim Mayza got the eighth. He made us sweat, starting the inning with back-to-back singles by LeMahieu and Judge. But a Rizzo force out and a Stanton double-play ball ended things.

Nate Pearson pitched the ninth. Fly out, strikeout. But a Gary Sanchez home run off the left-field foul pole and a Luke Voit homer didn’t really make us happy. But an Urshela strikeout ended the game.

On offense, it was another night where we should have scored more. A hit at the right moment could have made it a laugher.

We scored:

• One in the first: Bo Bichette had a leadoff home run.
• One in the fifth: Randal Grichuk hit his first home run since August 21st.
• One in the seventh: With two out, Danny Jansen doubled. Jake Lamb, pinch hitting, was hit by pitch. And Bo singled to drive in Jansen.
• One in the eighth: Teoscar Hernández led off with a walk, but then was thrown out trying to advance on a ball in the dirt. Big out. Alejandro Kirk walked. It would have been nice to have runners on first and second. Oh well. Lourdes Gurriel hit what I thought was a double-play ball, but second basemen Tyler Wade dropped the throw from short, everyone safe. Randal Grichuk singled to left but hit it too hard for pinch-runner Breyvic Valera to score. Bases loaded. Then Jansen walked on a full count pitch, bringing in the run. We still had bases loaded, still just one out, but Jake Lamb struck out and Bo ground out.
• Two in the ninth: Vlad hit home run number 42 (getting RBI number 100). But that wasn’t the end. Teoscar singled, and Breyvic Valera doubled him home. I thought Teo was going to be out at the plate, but Sanchez dropped the throw. Again we should have scored more, but Grichuk flew out to right and Jansen struck out.

We had 13 hits, and 4 walks.

Bo and Teoscar had 3 hits each. Grichuk had 2, maybe he’s coming out of the long slump?

Should have scored more, but six was enough.

There was a curious moment, Giancarlo Stanton, in the fourth, lined one into the corner in left. Stanton didn’t seem to be running hard. Lourdes threw to second, and his throw easily beat Stanton to the bag. He tried a rather weird slide and was called safe by the umpire, but the replay showed him out. And amazingly the replay officials agreed. I don’t know why Stanton was coasting around first. He must have misjudged where Lourdes was playing or didn’t think he could throw.

Jays of the Day: Bo (.293 WPA), Berríos (.122), and Grichuk (.122).

Suckage: Vlad had the number (-.125) mostly because of a strikeout with the bases loaded. But with the home run, I really can’t give it to him.

Tomorrow we start a four-game series with the Orioles (and I said yes to going out with friends for supper....Stupid Stupid Tom).

We had 818 comments in the GameThread. DangYouToHeck made up for missing some games, led us to victory.