The New York Yankees came to Toronto having won four straight and left with a 5-8 loss in Game 1 of 3 at Rogers Centre.
The story was Ryan Weathers, and it wasn't a good one.
Two Innings, Five Runs
Weathers didn't get into trouble -- he walked out to the mound in the first and immediately created it.
Ernie Clement singled to open the Toronto half, and with two outs Alejandro Kirk doubled to left to score him. Then Kazuma Okamoto -- a 26-year-old who's quietly become the heart of this Toronto lineup -- turned on a pitch and sent it 423 feet into the upper deck. Three runs before the Yankees had anything going. George Springer followed with a two-run shot in the second.
Five runs. Two innings. Weathers finally exited in the fifth having allowed six earned runs in 4.1 innings. (That 2-5 record on his line isn't a mirage.)
Bellinger Cuts It
Credit the Yankees for not walking off the field.
Paul Goldschmidt drove in a run on a sacrifice fly in the fifth, and then Bellinger lofted a fly ball to right that the umpires reviewed, considered at length, and upheld as a home run. His 10th of the year. Two runs scored, and it was 3-5 with some actual baseball left to play.
Toronto answered immediately -- Vladimir Guerrero Jr. doubled, Kirk singled him home -- and it was back to 3-7 before the Yankees could exhale.
The sixth was their best shot at making it a real game. José Caballero doubled sharply to left, and then Trent Grisham lined a single to center that scored both Spencer Jones and Caballero. Five-seven, three outs to pull closer.
The Blue Jays challenged the tag call on Grisham at second. Upheld. Grisham stayed for another half-inning, then came out with right hamstring tightness and didn't return.
Caballero's Night
If there was a best-game-for-a-Yankee to be found in the box score, it belonged to Caballero -- two hits, a run scored, a walk, and a double that forced the situation that produced the Yankees' best inning. He finished with the highest WPA of any Yankee at +15.7%, which isn't meaningless just because the game ended in a loss.
On a night where Jazz Chisholm Jr. managed one hit in four at-bats and Ben Rice walked twice but scored only once -- on Bellinger's HR -- Caballero kept showing up.
Yesavage and All Those Walks
Trey Yesavage wasn't exactly dominant. He walked six Yankees in five innings -- six walks, in a five-inning start -- and still came out of it with the win at 3-3 because the Yankees kept stranding the free passes.
Louis Varland closed it for his 12th save. Fernando Cruz gave up a Clement RBI double in the eighth to push it to 8-5, and the Yankees went three up, three down in the seventh, eighth, and ninth.
The Kirk Story
It wouldn't be fair not to mention what happened on the other side of the field.
Alejandro Kirk hadn't played a professional game in 62 days before Friday night. He walked into Rogers Centre and went 3-for-3 with 2 RBIs -- an RBI double in the first inning, an RBI single in the fifth. The Toronto crowd gave him a standing ovation when he came to the plate the first time. (He rewarded them pretty fast.)
For a Blue Jays team that was 34-36 and clinging to relevance, Kirk walking back through that door was a bigger deal than the eight runs.
Game 2 of this series is Saturday at Rogers Centre. The Yankees are a half-game behind Tampa Bay in the AL East at 41-28 -- this one hurts, but it's one game into a three-game set and the division hasn't moved anywhere.
Jimmy writes the Bronx Pinstripes game recap after every Yankees game. Beat-reporter pacing, fan's heartbeat. He calls opposing players by last name and has no patience for dead-air innings.
