Yanks' Sabathia looks for more success in Toronto (Aug 08, 2017)
TORONTO -- CC Sabathia has endured some struggles this season against the Toronto Blue Jays -- but not at their home park, the Rogers Centre.
The New York Yankees left-hander is 1-1 with a 7.62 ERA against the Blue Jays this season in three starts.
He will face Toronto again Tuesday night in the opener for a three-game series at the Rogers Centre.
In his only start in Toronto this season on June 1, Sabathia allowed one run on five hits while striking out seven over 6 1/3 innings to earn the win.
He is 8-2 with a 2.80 ERA in 13 career starts at the Rogers Centre. In his career against the Blue Jays, he is 16-10 with a 3.61 ERA in 29 starts.
Blue Jays first baseman Justin Smoak is 7-for-23 (.304) with two home runs and five RBIs in his career against Sabathia.
Sabathia (9-4, 3.81 ERA) will be facing Blue Jays left-hander J.A. Happ (4-8, 3.92).
Happ has faced the Yankees once this season, allowing one run on four hits while striking out six over six innings in a win on July 4. Sabathia was his opponent in that game, and he yielded four runs in 2 2/3 innings on his return from the disabled list.
In 15 career starts against the Yankees, Happ is 7-2 with a 3.63 ERA, allowing 80 hits in 91 2/3 innings.
Happ struck out 10 over seven innings Wednesday in a 5-1 win over the Chicago White Sox. He is 4-4 with a 3.32 ERA over his past 10 starts.
The teams are going in different directions, even though they are 5-5 in their season series.
The Yankees (59-51) are second in the American League East, three games behind the first-place Boston Red Sox. They are 2 1/2 games up in the race for the first AL wild card.
The Blue Jays (52-59) are last in the AL East, 10 1/2 games removed from first and five games out of the second wild-card spot.
The Yankees acquired two starters recently, left-hander Jaime Garcia and right-hander Sonny Gray. The latter is scheduled to face Toronto on Thursday, his second start for New York since being acquired in a trade with the Oakland Athletics.
Sabathia was pleased by the moves.
"I think it means a lot," Sabathia said, per MLB.com. "Coming into this year not really knowing where we were going to be at the trade deadline, to have them go out and add pieces makes a huge difference for us, especially after last year."
The Blue Jays, meanwhile, dealt left-handed starter Francisco Liriano to the Houston Astros and right-handed reliever Joe Smith to the Cleveland Indians.
The Yankees received a boost when they won their past two games, which earned them a split of a four-game series against the Cleveland Indians.
The Blue Jays, on the other hand, completed a 3-3 road trip Sunday with a devastating 7-6 loss to the Houston Astros. Closer Roberto Osuna blew his third save in eight days, giving up four runs in the ninth inning while showing a reluctance to use his fastball.
"I don't think anything's wrong," Osuna said through an interpreter after the game Sunday. "I'll be honest today: My command wasn't there like I wanted, but I think it's going to come back. I'm going to work hard. My velocity was a little bit down, so I'm going to look into that, but I think it's going to be great."
Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said Sunday, "We liked our guy on the mound. He's our closer. Generally, you don't think they're going to score three or four, whatever it is, but it happens. We've done that a few times ourselves."
The blown save was part of an alarming trend. In his past five outings starting with a blown save against the Los Angeles Angels on July 29, Osuna is 0-3 with two saves, three blown saves and an 18.69 ERA. Hitters have a .453 batting average against him in those games and a .500 on-base percentage.
"It's a thing that happens in baseball," Osuna said. "The past 10 days haven't been too great for me, but I've got to work on my stuff. I've got to get better. Against the Angels and White Sox (in a blown save July 31 in Chicago), it was stuff that happened."
