The Yankees’ return to Rogers Centre brought back old frustrations. Ryan Weathers was chased after six runs in the fifth inning, Trent Grisham left early with right hamstring tightness, and the Blue Jays beat New York 8-5 on Friday, snapping the Yankees’ four-
TORONTO — The Yankees didn’t just come back to Rogers Centre for a game on Friday evening. They came back to a place that has been stubbornly unwelcoming.
On their Thursday off-day, they had a chance to rediscover Toronto. By the time they returned to the ballpark, the city felt less like a reunion and more like a rerun from last season.
Ryan Weathers couldn’t make it through the middle of the game without unraveling. He was thumped for six runs before being hooked in the fifth inning. Trent Grisham exited early with right hamstring tightness. New York fell to the Blue Jays, 8-5, snapping its four-game winning streak.
“I want to win; I’m a competitor,” Weathers said. “I’m sick of putting us in a hole right now, the last couple of outings. It’s not a good feeling. You want to win ballgames as much as you can. I’ve just got to get back to executing pitches better.”
Last season, the Yankees lost eight of nine games in Toronto. Their struggles weren’t limited to the regular season either: they were also outscored 75-41 in Toronto, including the first two contests in the American League Division Series.
Grisham summed up what it has felt like for the Yankees in the city: “It’s a good ballclub over there.”
Before Friday’s game, manager Aaron Boone tried to draw a clean line from last year to this one.
“Last year was rough in this building for us,” Boone said. “It’s a new year, a new opportunity.”
That hope lasted about as long as the first couple of innings. The early swing set felt like déjà vu.
Alejandro Kirk came off the injured list to belt a booming double in the first. Kazuma Okamoto reached the distant 500 level in left field for a two-run homer. In the second, George Springer added a two-run shot off Weathers.
Weathers has surrendered multiple homers in four of his past five starts, including seven in his last three — all losses. After Friday’s damage, he pinned it on pitch quality.
“I’m just throwing bad pitches. That’s all I’ve got,” Weathers said. “I felt like I executed the pitch decent to Okamoto. He put a good swing on it. I obviously didn’t throw a good pitch to Springer. I’ve got to make better pitches.”
Boone said the issue showed up most clearly when hitters got into favorable counts.
“Weathers made ‘some two-strike mistakes,’” Boone said, adding that the home run damage has come on different pitches.
“The stuff is good; he’s throwing well,” Boone said. “Unfortunately, some of his mistakes have left the ballpark.”
When asked how those mistakes get corrected, Weathers didn’t try to soften the answer.
“When you’re in two-strike counts, you don’t throw the ball in the zone,” he said.
That still didn’t fully end the Yankees’ night. Down early to Trey Yesavage, who’d pitched 11 1/3 scoreless innings in two previous starts against the Yankees, New York battled back.
Paul Goldschmidt lifted a sacrifice fly. In the fifth, Cody Bellinger cleared the right-field wall with a two-run homer facing Yesavage.
Boone pointed to the at-bats continuing to pressure Yesavage as the positives that didn’t show up early enough.
“I thought we had good at-bats against him all night, frankly,” Boone said. “We pressured him early and weren’t able to get the big hit early to get to him, but we kept doing it. … I thought we did a good job up and down the lineup of making him throw strikes.”
The Yankees kept pushing into the middle innings. A walk and double chased Yesavage in the sixth. Facing Mason Fluharty, Grisham delivered a two-run single, but the moment came with a cost: he exited with right hamstring tightness.
Grisham’s run had been a bright spot for New York. He has been among the Yankees’ most productive hitters of late, batting .370 (27-for-73) with two homers and eight RBIs in his past 19 games through Friday.
Boone said the Yankees would evaluate Grisham early Saturday. He also said activating Jasson Domínguez from his Minor League rehab assignment earlier than initially expected “could be in play.”
“Fortunately, as we’ve talked about all year, we feel like it’s one of the deeper rosters we’ve had in a while,” Boone said. “We’ve got capable people going in there and picking up any slack left. You never like key guys going down, but in a long season, that’s unfortunately part of it sometimes.”
By the time the game reached the late innings, New York still had to make up ground. Ernie Clement’s eighth-inning RBI double off Fernando Cruz provided additional insurance for Louis Varland, who set the Yankees down with a pair of strikeouts in a dominant ninth.
The score closed at 8-5, and with it came the familiar feeling of being reminded—again—that in Toronto, the Yankees have work to do before the building turns friendly.
Yankees Blue Jays Rogers Centre Ryan Weathers Trent Grisham Trey Yesavage Cody Bellinger Aaron Boone Alejandro Kirk Kazuma Okamoto George Springer Jasson Domínguez Fernando Cruz Louis Varland