Yankees Drop Dunedin Finale to Blue Jays

In the old days, up until 1960, when a season was 154 games long, and the Yankees spent their Spring Training in St. Petersburg, Florida, April 15 was around the time they had finished their northward trek back to New York to begin the regular season, and any games played before that weren't counted.

If only that were true this season. This time, the Yankees will be glad to get out of the Tampa Bay area, and away from the again-temporarily-relocated, permanently-pesky Toronto Blue Jays.

Yesterday afternoon, in the conclusion of a 3-game series at tiny TD Ballpark in Dunedin, on the St. Petersburg side of the Bay, the much-ballyhooed, injury-recovering Corey Kluber started. It would be unfair to say he had nothing. It would be fairer to say he pitched to extremes: His good pitches were insanely good, but there weren't nearly enough of them. He went 4 innings, allowing 3 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks, with 4 strikeouts.

Until there were 2 out in the top of the 4th, the Yankees' only runs were on a pair of solo home runs by Aaron Judge. The 2nd, leading off the 4th, was followed by a walk by Brett Gardner, a flyout by Gary Sanchez, a double by Gleyber Torres, a strikeout by Jay Bruce (who is now bearing the brunt of online Yankee Fan frustration), and an RBI single by Gio Urshela. That gave the Yankees a 4-3 lead.

Jonathan Loaisiga came out to pitch the bottom of the 5th. He got the 1st 2 outs, before Cavan Biggio, son of Hall-of-Famer Craig, got a hit to right field that Judge absolutely butchered. It went all the way to the wall, and was generously scored as a triple, but should have been a single and an error.

Biggio thought he could turn it into an inside-the-park home run. He got caught in a rundown, and Loaisiga was out of the inning after 3 batters. Had the Yankees won the game, Biggio might have been praised for his hustle, but he also might have been ripped for costing the Jays the tying run.

Loaisiga has done well in middle relief so far this season, but he was bad in the 6th inning. He allowed back-to-back singles, then hit a batter with a pitch. Bases loaded, nobody out. Bruce showed enough sense to take the next ground ball and throw it home for a forceout. But Loaisiga threw a wild pitch that allowed the tying run to score.

He got the next 2 batters out. Ordinarily, getting into a bases-loaded-nobody-out jam, and getting out of it with only 1 run allowed, is a relief, especially on the road. But that 1 run would loom large, as the Yankees went down 1-2-3 in the 7th and the 9th, and wasted a 1-out single by Judge in the 8th.

Bo Bichette, son of All-Star Dante, led off the bottom of the 9th by taking Chad Green deep. Blue Jays 5, Yankees 4. WP: Rafael Dolis (1-0). No save. LP: Green (0-2).

The Yankees are now 5-7, 4 games behind the Boston Red Sox in the AL East. That's a pace for going 67-95 over a full season.

Today is an off-day. Tomorrow, the Yankees open a series against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium II.

Not Too Early

Is it too early to panic over the Yankees' annual slow start? No. It's years too late to begin panicking over those.

Is it too early to stop raving over Brian Cashman's acquisition of Jameson Taillon? No. Last night, at TD Ballpark in Dunedin, Florida, he didn't get out of the 4th inning, and put the Yankees in a 5-0 hole.

The night before, a 1-0 hole was not too much to overcome. Last night, as it would be on most nights, 5-0 is to big a hole.

Aaron Hicks got 3 hits, and DJ LeMahieu 2, but there were no RBIs between them. Giancarlo Stanton had a 2-RBI single in the 8th, but it was much too little, much too late.

Blue Jays 7, Yankees 3. WP: Hyun Jin Ryu (1-0). No save. LP: Taillon (0-1).

The series concludes this afternoon. Corey Kluber pitches against T.J. Zeuch. Then the Yankees come home to play the Tampa Bay Rays.

Hey, don't look now, but under formerly Astro-cheating-scandal-suspended, now-restored, manager Alex Cora, the Boston Red Sox, who had lost their 1st 3 games of the season, have now won 7 in a row, and are now in 1st place in the American League Eastern Division. The rest of the Division -- the Yankees, the Jays, the Baltimore Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays -- are all 5-6, 2 1/2 games behind them.

I guess the Red Sox found a new way to cheat. Or an old one, and a better way to cover it up.

Yankees Win a Low-Scoring Game. Seriously.

Brian Cashman's philosophy of outhitting everybody doesn't seem to be working. The idea that they could win a low-scoring game was getting further and further away.

They had the right pitcher, though, in the opener of a 3-game series with the Toronto Blue Jays -- at the Jays' Spring Training facility, TD Ballpark in Dunedin, Florida, in the Tampa Bay region, because they couldn't play in Toronto due to COVID restrictions, and couldn't play in Buffalo like they did last year because that ballpark is being renovated.

The pitcher was Gerrit Cole, and he allowed only 1 run in 6 innings. But he allowed a run in the 1st inning, and, despite eventually retiring 15 straight batters, it began to look like the Yankees might lose the game 1-0.

Indeed, the Yankees only got 4 hits all game long. And 2 of them were singles by Rougned Odor and Mike Tauchman. To someone who knows no more about this game than they've seen in this post thus far, that looks bleak.

But the other 2 hits were home runs, by backup catcher Kyle Higashioka, whom Cole prefers to pitch to, over Gary Sanchez. Higgy's 1st homer followed Odor's single in the top of the 5th, and gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead. His 2nd homer led off the top of the 8th, and gave the Yankees some breathing room.

Justin Wilson pitched a perfect 7th, Darren O'Day a scoreless 8th, and Aroldis Chapman a scoreless 9th. So they actually won a game where they didn't have to bomb the opposition out of the yard. Seriously.

Yankees 3, Blue Jays 1. WP: Cole (2-0). SV: Chapman (1). LP: Robbie Ray (0-1). This got the Yankees back up to .500, at 5-5.

The series continues tonight. Jameson Taillon starts, against Hyun Jim Ryu. Come on you Bombers!