TORONTO \u2014 Somebody needs to take the shovel out of the Yankees\u2019 hands.<\/p>\n
Returning to the scene where they were swept out of first place three weeks ago, the Yankees only dug their hole a little deeper Monday night with a sloppy showing in the first game of a showdown series.<\/p>\n
Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe made back-to-back throwing errors that scored the final two runs of a four-run fifth inning that sank the Yankees in a 4-1 loss to the Blue Jays at a sold-out Rogers Centre.<\/p>\n
In the process, the Yankees (55-45) dropped to a season-high four games back of the Blue Jays (59-41) for first place in the AL East \u2014 a deficit larger than any they faced last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m concerned about us playing well and getting consistent,\u201d manager Aaron Boone said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a month now where we haven\u2019t been our best. We need to start playing better consistently and putting wins in the win column. That\u2019s all we can really worry about. We can\u2019t worry about, \u2018We\u2019re up this, we\u2019re down that.\u2019 We\u2019ve got to play well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (27) slides into home plate scoring a run against the New York Yankees during the fifth inning. Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
The Blue Jays have won 11 straight games at home, a streak that began with a four-game sweep of the Yankees at the start of this month.<\/p>\n
Carlos Rod\u00f3n did not help himself Monday by issuing a season-high five walks across five innings of work, but his defense failed him late to turn a 2-1 game into 4-1.<\/p>\n
The Yankees, meanwhile, only mustered one run in seven innings against Kevin Gausman, with Giancarlo Stanton\u2019s solo blast in the fourth inning accounting for the only damage.<\/p>\n
Bo Bichette\u2019s two-run double put the Blue Jays up 2-1 in the bottom of the fifth before things went awry on the left side of the Yankees infield.<\/p>\n
Yankees designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton hits a home run against the Toronto Blue Jays during the fourth inning. AP<\/p>\n
Rod\u00f3n had just won a 14-pitch battle with Davis Schneider for the second out when his very next pitch should have ended the inning. <\/p>\n
But Peraza \u2014 manning third base until the Yankees presumably find a replacement by the trade deadline \u2014 fielded Myles Straw\u2019s ground ball and yanked the throw to first, allowing Bichette to score from second for the 3-1 lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI rushed through the sequence of defending that ball,\u201d Peraza said. \u201cRod\u00f3n is pitching a good game and it\u2019s a play I got to make there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yankees manager Aaron Boone, second from right, stands on the mound to speak with pitcher Carlos Rod\u00f3n. AP<\/p>\n
Leo Jim\u00e9nez then hit a ground ball to shortstop, where Volpe fielded cleanly but threw a one-hopper to Paul Goldschmidt, who could not come up with the backhanded scoop. Volpe\u2019s 12th error \u2014 the most of any American League shortstop \u2014 allowed Straw to race home from second to make it 4-1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just rushed the throw, pulled it and gave Goldy a tough pick to handle,\u201d Volpe said. \u201cAnytime you get a ball hit to you, you expect it to be an out. When that doesn\u2019t happen, it\u2019s frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Volpe has fallen off offensively over the past six weeks, his defense has also taken a step back, though Boone continued to insist he is \u201cstill a top shortstop.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a few too many [errors],\u201d Boone said. \u201cThat said, errors get handed out a lot of different places in a lot of different ways. I\u2019m not so worried about \u2014 it\u2019s making plays. He\u2019s still making a lot of plays, but he hasn\u2019t been as consistent as he wants to be and as consistent as he normally is. So there\u2019s a few balls he\u2019s left on the table, one tonight included. Those are plays he expects to make and we need him to make too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since he hurt his left (non-throwing) shoulder on a diving attempt in early May, Volpe has regularly had ice on that shoulder after games. But both Volpe and Boone insisted he was healthy.<\/p>\n
Yankees third baseman Oswald Peraza (18) slides into second base ahead of the tag from Toronto Blue Jays second baseman Leo Jim\u00e9nez (49) during the fifth inning. Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Rod\u00f3n, making his first start since throwing an inning in the All-Star Game last Tuesday, had walked a tightrope in the early innings, escaping bases-loaded jams in two of the first four frames. But the 40-pitch fifth inning ended his night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I was a little more economical throughout the game,\u201d Rod\u00f3n said. \u201cA lot of pitches wasted I felt like.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Yankees had a chance to mount a comeback in the eighth inning when they put runners on first and second with one out. But Stanton lined out to center before Jasson Dom\u00ednguez grounded out, falling deeper into an 0-for-18 skid.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s July,\u201d Volpe said. \u201cWe still know we got so many games ahead of us. We don\u2019t stack ourselves up against one team or another. We stack ourselves up against ourselves. So when we play our best, everything will take care of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Somebody needs to take the shovel out of the Yankees\u2019 hands. Returning to the scene where…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":83113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5243,10632,1266,405,403,2228,5226,5225,5228,5227,33901,62,1290,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-83112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-anthony-volpe","10":"tag-carlos-rodon","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-new-york-yankees","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-oswald-peraza","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114896775922486969","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}