Yankees 1, Blue Jays 3, and the whole thing turns on a play where the Yankees never should've let the inning breathe in the first place.
Gerrit Cole had this one under control for five and a half innings. Then the sixth showed up, brought two throwing errors with it, and by the time Toronto finished batting, a 1-0 Yankees lead was a 2-1 deficit. New York never got it back. Final: Blue Jays 3, Yankees 1, and the Bombers drop the opener of this three-game set at Rogers Centre.
The Sixth Inning Nobody Wants to Watch Twice
Trent Grisham gave the Yankees the lead in the top of the sixth, a solo shot to right off Shane Bieber (his 16th of the year), and for about fifteen minutes this looked like a game Cole was going to steal.
Then George Springer grounded into what should've been a routine force-out at third, with Nathan Lukes retired there. Ryan McMahon airmailed the relay throw. Luis García Jr. couldn't corral it at first. Two errors on one play, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. came all the way around from first to tie it at 1 (he'd leave the game shortly after, on the same play, following a collision with rookie shortstop George Lombard Jr. at third -- not how you want your best hitter's night to end).
Two batters later, Alejandro Kirk lined a sharp double into left, and Springer scored the go-ahead run. That double was the biggest swing of the night, a 17-point jump in Toronto's win probability on one line drive. Cole didn't do anything wrong on the pitch. The defense behind him did.
A clear night in Toronto, 77 degrees, 42,816 in the building, and the sixth inning is the one everybody's going to remember. Not because of anything Cole threw. Because of what happened after the ball left the bat.
Kirk Was the Story, Whether the Yankees Wanted Him to Be
Kirk finished 2-for-3 with a homer, a double, a walk, and two RBIs, and by any measure -- win probability, box score, vibes -- he was the best player on the field Friday night. His sixth-inning double broke the tie. His eighth-inning homer off Bradley Hanner, a fly ball that just kept carrying to right-center, put it away at 3-1.
Nobody on the Yankees had an answer for him. That's just Friday.
The lone bright spot in the lineup outside of Grisham was Spencer Jones, who ripped a double for his only hit of the night (he went 1-for-4). Everybody else in the order was quiet -- five hits total for a Yankees offense that's used to doing more damage than this.
Cole Was Fine. Bieber Was Better.
Cole's final line: 6 innings, 5 hits, 2 runs (1 earned), 5 strikeouts, 2 walks, 87 pitches. That's a start he wins most nights (it snapped a streak of three straight winning starts for him, for what it's worth). Bieber matched him pitch for pitch: 6 innings, 1 earned run, 4 hits, 5 strikeouts, 1 walk, and the win to improve to 4-2.
The bullpens told the rest of the story. Hanner came on for the eighth and served up Kirk's homer -- one earned run, two strikeouts, but the one that counted left the yard. Louis Varland closed it out for his 27th save, and Toronto never sweated the ninth.
Two Errors, Zero Margin
This is the part that'll bug the coaching staff longer than the final score does. Cole gave up one earned run in six innings on the road and still took the loss, because the defense behind him couldn't turn a routine sixth-inning force play into three outs. When your ace pitches like that and loses anyway, it's not on him.
New York's at 68-54 now, seven back of the Rays in the East, losers of two straight. Not a crisis. Just a Friday that got away from them in the sixth.
Game 2 in Toronto is next, and the Yankees need Cole's kind of start to actually turn into a win this time.
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.
