New York Yankees: Yankee pitchers bounce back despite losing to the Jays!

Mar 5, 2020; Lakeland, Florida, USA; New York Yankees starting pitcher Jordan Montgomery (47) walks back to the dugout after being removed from the game in the fourth inning against the New York Yankees at Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

New York Yankees lose to the Blue Jays 4-2

The New York Yankees met the Toronto Blue Jays today at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida.  Starting for the Yankees was Gerrit Cole, who got pounded for back to back homers twice in two innings and gave up six runs in his outing.  MLB.com’s Bryan Hock: The damage was primarily inflicted by Travis Demeritte and Miguel Cabrera, who hit back-to-back homers against him in the first inning and then repeated the feat in the second. For what it’s worth, Cole indicated that he had a fever earlier in the week that he thought “might have been strep.”  Today he would look to bounce back in his start against Tanner Roark and the Toronto Blue Jays.

As Cole came out for his first inning of work, it was in the upper seventies and under partly cloudy skies with a light wind. Cole faced Billy McKinney who struck out, Randal Grichuk reached on a liner that wasn’t handled by Torres.  Grichuk advanced on a wild pitch, Cavan Biggio struck out, and Vladmir Guerrero Jr. singled up the middle scoring Grichuk for the Jay’s one-run lead.  Joe Panik gave Cole his third strikeout of the inning.  At the bottom, DJ LeMahieu struck out looking, Brett Gardner flew out, and Gleyber Torres struck out.  Blue Jays 1, Yankees 0.

After mishandling a catch in the first, Torres started the second with a throwing error taking Voit off the base and allowing Hernandez a single.  McGuire flew out, Burns struck out, and Fisher struck out for Cole’s fifth knock out of the game.  In the bottom, Voit flew out, Andujar flew out, and Higashioka hit a foul to right that was caught, and the Yankee went down in order. At the third McKinney ground out, Grichuk struck out, and Biggio flew out to Gardner.  At the bottom of the third Herrera flew out, Gittens struck out, and Granite struck out while Jay pitching faced the minimum number of hitters in the game.

Cole out in the top and got Vlad to ground out and his day was over striking out six in 3.1 innings.  Dan Otero replaced him giving up a triple to Joe Panik.  Hernandez few out, and McGuire singled driving in Panik. Burns than doubled moving McGuire to third.  The ended the inning stranding two but picked up a run for the Jays 2-0 lead. Roark, who retired 9 Yankees in a row, allowed DJ to double on his first pitch of the inning.  Gardner popped a short one to the infield and was out, but DJ moved to third.  Torres sac flew and DJ scored for the first Yankee run.  Voit ground out for the Jays 2 Yankees 1 score.

Jordan Montgomery in the fifth got McKinny to strikeout, Grichuk flew out, and Biggio ground out.  Shun Yamaguchi pitched the bottom.  Andujar singled, Higgy ground out and Andujar moved into scoring position. Herrera flew out to center, and Gitten struck out.  Monty at the top of the sixth got all three Jays to fly out. Granite lined to first in the bottom, DJ ground to short, and Gardner got the first walk of the ballgame.  Torres hitting, Gardner stole second, Torres flew way out to the track standing Gardner and the score remained Jays 2 Yanks 1.

Back in the seventh, Monty got all Jay out in a 3 up and 3 down half.  At the bottom, Voit struck out, Andujar ground out, and Higgy hit his team-leading third home run of the season to tie up the score.  At the top of the eighth Monty for his third inning, and struck out the side, putting down 12 Jays in a row.  Gaviglio pitched the bottom, getting Gittens to strike out for the third time.  Amburgey ground out, and Wagner ground out keeping the game tied at 2.

At the ninth reliever, Ben Heller allowed a walk to De Los Santos and Santiago Espinal homered for the Jays 4-2 lead.  Conine struck out, Cantwell singled and moved to second on a wild pitch by Heller.  Williams struck out and MattWivinis replaced Heller and got Pruitt to fly out.  With last licks for the Yankees in the bottom, they faced Ty Tice.  Lockridge flew out, Castillo singled, Park got a base hit, Aguilar struck out, and Donny Sands ground out, leaving two Yankees on base for the final score of Toronto Blue Jays 4 and Yankees 2.

Take-a-ways:

There were two big take-a-ways in the game despite the Yankee loss.  In their last outing, both Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery got hammered.  Today was a different story with both pitchers bouncing back big time.  Cole allowed one run in 3.1 innings while getting 6 k’s.  Montgomery did not give up a run in four innings of work while putting down 12 Jays in a row at one point.  The other take-a-way is that Kyle Higashioka has pretty well sealed the deal on being the starting backup catcher for the Yankees.  Before today, he had the team leading two home runs and hit another long ball in this game. The winning pitcher was Gaviglio; the loser was Yankee Ben Heller, who gave up two runs in the ninth. During the game, Gary Sanchez tested positive for the Flu.