Yankees’ rally falls short against Blue Jays

The Yankees have scored 18 runs in their last three games and four or more runs in six of their last 10 games. “That’s the mindset.” McCann hit one of two home runs off Mets’ starter Noah Syndergaard in the sixth inning with two on, his 26th that leads all catchers in the major leagues. He’s focused on winning with Toronto and he has a prime opportunity to do that as the Blue Jays look to extend their 2.5-game lead over New York tonight.

But after a grueling, nine-pitch at-bat, Price bested Rodriguez with a 93-mph cut fastball on the outside edge.

The Yankee jitters would continue when Justin Smoak lashed a line drive that New York right fielder Carlos Beltran played casually, as if he had a bead on it – only he didn’t. “For me, those were my biggest three outs”.

“What we saw tonight is what we expected from him”, manager Ned Yost said.

“I think that we’d like to have Matt in the mound … but he wasn’t”. He was wearing a new knee brace but flashing his best stuff.

Shreve said he feels fine and that he’s not worn down from his first full season.

The Royals at least got an encouraging start from Johnny Cueto, who is 2-6 since they acquired him from Cincinnati.

For New York, engaging in meaningful play down the stretch of the regular season is supposed to be second nature.

RHP Masahiro Tanaka (right hamstring strain) was scratched from his scheduled start Wednesday against the Blue Jays.

Yankees: RHP Nathan Eovaldi still has inflammation in his right elbow and won’t be able to resume throwing until next week, Girardi said.

The rest of the bunch-Michael Pineda, Ivan Nova and rookie Luis Severino-are an uneasy mix of inconsistent and untested. Presuming Price pitches the first game, which will happen unless he’s forced to throw a wild card game, he likely wouldn’t go again until the fifth and deciding game. “But we’ve got to go through that adversity”.

Red Sox: Sandoval returned after missing the previous two games with an illness but left suffering from lightheadedness after scoring the go-ahead run.

His recent track record, however, is less than sterling.

Between the third and seventh innings, Price retired 14 straight to earn the victory, improving to 17-5 overall on the season.

When Sabathia landed on the DL in August, it was worth wondering if his career was in jeopardy.

Now, after avoiding surgery and making a couple of encouraging trips to the hill, he’s teasing the old CC.

In that context, Game 1 seemed to favour the Jays.

No, let’s see another strong start or two.

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And when Adam Warren, the nervous Yankee starter, nicked the jersey of Josh Donaldson with an inside pitch in the first inning, howls of indignation erupted from the open-roofed facility. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but here’s what to keep an eye on as the Blue Jays brain trust makes a mental note of its post-season rosters, which can be changed before the start of the division series, championship series and World Series and at any time during the series in the event of an injury requiring disabling.

It would have been an improbable notion a few weeks ago-laughable, even. Now, it’s entirely plausible. If that’s the case, expect Buehrle to be left off the roster entirely.