Rock bottom in Toronto: Yankees swept, collapse looms

Toronto—The Yankees get swept in a four-game series in Toronto for the first time in the history of the franchise after an 8-5 loss. Blue Jays also took sole possession of first place. Clarke Schmidt got the starting nod for the Yankees and faced off against Chris Bassitt for the Jays. 

Aaron Judge worked a two-out walk in the top of the first inning. Cody Bellinger followed that up with a line drive single to left field on a beautiful piece of hitting to extend his hit streak to nine straight games. However, Jazz Chisholm Jr. struck out to strand two runners on base. 

Smchidt walked a batter with one out in the bottom of the first inning, which came back to bite him as a couple of batters later, Addison Barger crushed a RBI double to give the Jays a 1-0 lead. 

Trent Grisham evened things up at 1-1 in the top of the third inning via a solo home run, his 16th of the season. 

George Springer continues to haunt the Yankees in this series as he blasted a two-run home run in the bottom of the third inning to put the Jays back ahead 3-1. Springer is now 6-for-11 with three home runs and nine RBIs in this series. 

Jasson Dominguez lined a one-out triple the other way in the top of the fourth inning. The next batter, Anthony Volpe, dunked in a RBI bloop single to make it a 3-2 game. The next batter, Austin Wells, grounded a single to right center, allowing Volpe to go first to third. Volpe then came across to score and tie the game up at 3-3 via a wild pitch. 

Unfortunately, after just 55 pitches, Schmidt had to leave the game due to right forearm tightness and was replaced by Clayton Beeter, and immediately walked a batter and gave up a single. Nathan Lukes then delivered a two-run double after a long 14-pitch battle with Beeter to make it a 5-3 Jays lead. 

"I mean, anytime you’re getting an MRI on your forearm or whatever the body part is, you’re not feeling happy about it,” Schmidt said. “I’m praying everything’s going to be clean and minor, but we’ll see what happens."

Judge worked a leadoff walk in the top of the fifth inning. A couple batters later, Dominguez lined a single to right field, allowing Judge to go first to third; Dominguez's third hit of the night. Domguez then stole second base, but Volpe popped out to strand two runners in scoring position. 

Barger launched a solo home run to lead off the bottom of the fifth inning to extend the Jays' lead to 6-3. Jonathan Loáisiga replaced Beeter and picked up a strikeout for the final out of the inning. 

Loáisiga remained in the game for the bottom of the sixth inning and worked a scoreless inning. Belli followed that up with a single of his own to put two runners aboard with nobody out. Jazz then came through with an RBI double to make it a 6-4 game. A couple of batters later, Volpe picked up a RBI groundout to make it a 6-5 game.

Mark Leiter Jr. took over for Loáisiga in the bottom of the seventh inning and worked a scoreless frame. 

Judge was intentionally walked for the fifth time this series, setting a new record for most intentional walks in one series. He also tied Mickey Mantle with 21 intentional walks in a season, the most ever in a season by a Yankee. It looked like Belli was hit by a pitch in the top of the eighth inning, but he ended up swinging and overruling the hit by pitch, so instead of having two runners on for Jazz with two outs, the inning was over. 

Luke Weaver replaced Leiter in the bottom of the eighth inning and served up a two-run home run to Springer to make it an 8-5 game, as the Yankees' pitching continues to struggle in this series. 

Dominguez picked up his fourth hit of the ballgame on a one-out double in the top of the ninth; Dominguez will probably get rewarded with a day off tomorrow, knowing Aaron Boone's brain-dead management abilities. However, that would be all for the Yankees as Volpe popped out and Wells lined out, as the Jays sweep the Yankees to take sole possession of first place. 

"We're in the thick of it right now,” Schmidt said. “In my career as a Yankee, I can think about this happening almost every single year, and it feels like around June and July, where we kind of grind a little bit. We're going through it."

The Yankees will now travel back to New York to start a new series with the Mets in Queens, who are also struggling. Marcus Stroman will get the starting nod for the Yankees, and the Mets starter is still TBD. The first pitch is scheduled for 3:10 p.m. ET on the YES Network. 

My thoughts on the game: Hopefully, Schmidt is ok, but a forearm injury is never good.  "It’s kind of hard to pinpoint, but just general forearm/elbow area,” Schmidt said. “So we’ll see." It was a flat-out embarrassing series all around from the pitching; not much more to say about it. Yankees need to figure it out because right now, it looks like the Yankees are collapsing right in front of our eyes. On to tomorrow, this feels like rock bottom, can't get much worse.