Yankees can't figure out Kevin Gausman, fall four games behind Toronto
Yankees starting pitcher Cam Schlittler reacts during the second inning against the Blue Jays on Friday at Yankee Stadium. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Ahead of arguably the most important series of the year for his team, Yankees manager Aaron Boone lauded the season AL East-leading Toronto is having.
He called the Blue Jays a formidable team and this three-game set a formidable task.
The Yankees have been unable to crack Toronto all season long, and that didn’t change Friday night. They fell flat in a dismal 7-1 loss in front of 46,055 at a sold-out Yankee Stadium.
“I think we’ve played them a couple times in there where we weren’t quite ourselves or right,” Boone said. “But they’ve certainly had our number to this point.”
Rookie righthander Cam Schlittler lasted only 1 2⁄3 innings in his first true major-league dud and the Yankees were held to four hits and a run — on Giancarlo Stanton’s second-inning homer — in an eight-inning masterpiece by Kevin Gausman.
Schlittler (2-3, 3.24 ERA), making his 10th career start, allowed four runs, five hits, two walks and a hit batsman, striking out two. He threw 66 pitches, one more than Gausman needed to get through six innings.
“It’s frustrating,” he said. “The biggest thing is we’re playing a division rival, and you can’t go 1.2 innings.”
Gausman (9-10, 3.63) struck out five and walked one in his 105-pitch effort.
The Yankees (78-63) trail Toronto (82-59) by four games, though it effectively is five because the latter owns an 8-3 lead in the season series and has the tiebreaker. The Yankees, who are 5-16 against the Blue Jays and Red Sox, remained a half-game ahead of Boston for the first wild card.
Aaron Judge, limited to serving as the designated hitter for the past month because of a flexor strain in his right elbow, returned to rightfield for the first time since July 25. It was not a particularly sharp defensive game for Judge, who cost the Yankees a run in the first inning with his indecision — or physical inability to throw home — and watched Bo Bichette’s fifth-inning fly ball fall between him and Jazz Chisholm Jr. for a single.
With the bases loaded, two outs and Toronto leading 1-0 in the first, Nathan Lukes lined a single to right. A healthy Judge seemingly would have thrown out Daulton Varsho, who was on second and had just started to round third by the time Judge began his throwing motion, but he softly flipped it to Chisholm as Varsho scooted home to extend Toronto’s lead to 3-0.
“I wouldn’t be in the outfield if I wasn’t able to make that throw,” Judge said.
But he did not.
“My first thought was to get it in to Jazz, get it in to whoever, just for them to make that throw,” he said. “Because my first thought was trying to make the play, and it just kind of died before it got to me. So my next thought is, hey, try to get it in as soon as you can and see what happens.”
The Blue Jays made Schlittler work as he threw 40 first-inning pitches and had a total of 24 pitches fouled off. He exited with men on first and third in the second, and Ryan Yarbrough struck out Varsho to escape the inning.
Yarbrough, who missed all of July and August with a right oblique strain, delivered a solid outing in his first appearance since June 18. He allowed one run — a fifth-inning solo shot by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. that extended Toronto’s lead to 5-1 — and three hits in 5 1⁄3 innings.
Schlittler appeared to be in a groove after striking out the first two batters he faced. Not quite. Guerrero singled and scored on Bichette’s broken-bat double. Varsho singled and Alejandro Kirk walked to load the bases ahead of Lukes’ two-run single and Judge’s defensive adventure.
“He’s in position to make the throw,” Boone said. “We’re handling it how we handle it.”
Schlittler loaded the bases with one out in the second. Bichette, the last batter he faced, made it 4-0 with a sacrifice fly.
Stanton’s homer, a 112.7-mph, 418-foot laser that hit the back of the Toronto bullpen, cut the Yankees’ deficit to 4-1 in the bottom of the second. It was his 19th of the season, all in his last 47 games, and ninth in his last 19 games.
Judge led off the seventh with a single and Stanton singled with one out — the Yankees’ second and third hits — but Gausman struck out Chisholm and got Paul Goldschmidt to fly out.
Ernie Clement and Varsho added RBI doubles, Clement in the eighth off Mark Leiter Jr. and Varsho in the ninth off Camilo Doval.
“We got to play better,” Judge said. “Can’t give them extra outs. You got to make pitches when we can, and you got to come up with some clutch hitting. It’s just kind of the whole thing.”
Ben Dickson is Newsday Sports' general assignment reporter. He joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.
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