Yankees Make a Different Difference vs. Pesky Blue Jays

The Yankees opened a 3-game series away to those pesky Toronto Blue Jays last night, and if they'd played most of the games between them last season the way they played this one, it would have been the Yanks, not the Jays, winning the American League Eastern Division. Alas, the Yanks went 6-13 against the Jays, and that made the difference.

Last night, the Yankees made a different difference.

A baseball team shouldn't need 5 separate pitchers to hold the opposition to 2 runs on 3 hits over 9 innings. But when Joe Girardi is the manager, it can happen.

Masahiro Tanaka started for the Yankees, and Girardi hit the panic button by removing him after 5 innings, in which he threw 92 pitches, allowing said 2 runs on 3 hits, walking 4, striking out 6. Any manager who isn't a scaredy-cat would have let Tanaka continue.

Girardi didn't. He used Johnny Barbato, Chasen Shreve, Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller. Between them, they allowed only 2 baserunners: A walk each by Barbato and Shreve.

The Yankees got a run on a Starling Castro groundout in the 2nd, Brian McCann's 2nd home run of the season in the 6th, and a Jacoby Ellsbury single in the 7th.

Perhaps the biggest moment in the game came in the bottom half of that inning. With 2 out and the tying run on 2nd base, Jose Bautista, who had earlier doubled home Toronto's runs off Tanaka in the 3rd, batted against Betances. Betances has struggled in big moments since the start of last season, and Bautista has been trying to succeed David Ortiz as the big Yankee Killer of the age.

But, last night, in the big moment, Betances struck Bautista out looking. Now that is making a different difference. The Jays didn't get another baserunner, as Betances pitched a perfect 8th, and Miller a perfect 9th.

Yankees 3, Blue Jays 2. WP: Barbato (1-0 -- his 1st major league win). SV: Miller (2). LP: Brett Cecil (0-2).

The Yankees got a bit of a scare when McCann took a foul tip off his foot and had to leave the game. X-rays showed a bruised toe. He'll be out for at least a couple of games, but it looks like he won't have to go on the Disabled List. It looks like Austin Romine will be the catcher in the interim.

The series continues tonight. Michael Pineda starts against J.A. Happ.

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Meanwhile, the Mets fell to 2-5, losing to the Miami Marlins 2-1. The New York Daily News, which slobbered over the Mets so much last year their writers needed a bib at time, ripped them this morning.

The Yankees are 4-2, the Mets are 2-5. At this rate, the Yankees will finish 108-54, and the Mets will finish 48-116.

"But, Uncle Mike," you say, "it's still early. It's a long season. Anything can happen."

True. But, last season, the Mets won 90 games. To match that this season, they'd have to win 88 of their last 155 -- a 92-win pace. Hardly impossible for a team that won 90 games last season, but, right now, they're hitting as badly as they did in last year's World Series, which is worse than the Yankees hit from September 1 onward.

As they say on medical dramas, "I'm not going to lie to you: It doesn't look good."

Yankee Bats: That's Cold, Man. That's Cold.

The Yankees started a 3-game series away to the Detroit Tigers yesterday. Here's what they got at bat:

* A walk by Brett Gardner in the 1st inning -- erased by a double play.

* A walk by Chase Headley in the 2nd -- stranded.

* A single by Jacoby Ellsbury in the 3rd -- and then he was caught stealing.

* A single by Mark Teixeira in the 4th -- stranded.

* A walk by Teixeira in the 7th, and he reached 2nd base on a wild pitch, still only 1 out -- stranded.

* A walk by Austin Romine in the 8th -- stranded.

* A leadoff single by Gardner in the 9th, subsequently forced out by a Starlin Castro grounder -- and Teix and Carlos Beltran called out on strikes. (When you're Carlos Beltran, you take a called 3rd strike to the end game with a man on base. It's what you do.)

That's it. We got 3 singles and 4 walks, and only 1 guy got as far as 2nd base (and even that wasn't his own doing). The bottom 5 places in the batting order went a collective 0-for-14 (with 2 walks).

I know it was a bit chilly in Motown, but the Yankee bats? That's cold, man. That's cold.

I know Comerica Park is a pitcher's park, but that is unacceptable.

Also unacceptable is this Yankee trend of the 2013, '14 and '15 seasons, apparently back for '16: Scoring runs in bunches (25 over the preceding 2 games) and then we can't hit the ground if we fell off a ladder.

Luis Severino didn't pitch great, but our bats could very well have given him a chance to win. Johnny Barbato (a 23-year-old righthander from Miami, wearing Number 26) and Luis Cessa (a soon-to-be 24-year-old righthander from Veracruz, Mexico, becoming the 1st Yankee to wear Number 85 in a regular-season game), pitched decently in relief (Cessa did give up a home run to Miguel Cabrera), but it didn't matter.

It's worth noting that, since it was a roadtrip day game after a home night game, manager Joe Girardi gave Alex Rodriguez the day off. He also gave Beltran the day off until sending him up to pinch-hit in the 9th. In both cases, you can see how well that worked out.

Tigers 3, Yankees 0. WP: Jordan Zimmerman (1-0). No save was credited. LP: Severino (0-1).

The series continues this afternoon. CC Sabathia pitches his 1st game since going into alcohol rehab, against former Met Mike Pelfrey. I hope we get both the Sabathia and the Pelfrey of 2011.

It's supposed to be even colder. Maybe T.S. Eliot was right: "April is the cruelest month."

Actually, he was from St. Louis. He would never have written that if he was from New England. Or Chicago. Or a Met fan. He'd know it's October.