TORONTO — Ryan Weathers is the only member of the Yankees pitching staff that was not in the organization the last time they played here before Friday.
But the left-hander sure looked a lot like the rest of his teammates did over the course of last year when playing north of the border.
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Try it freeThe Blue Jays beat up on Weathers early, taking him deep twice in the first two innings to worsen his home run problem, and then hung on to hand the Yankees an 8-5 loss that snapped their four-game winning streak on Friday night at sold-out Rogers Centre.
Combined with Trey Yesavage blanking the Yankees early, the game had shades of 2025, when Aaron Boone’s club went 1-6 here during the regular season and 0-2 in the AL Division Series.
Weathers, who has now given up nine home runs over his last five starts and 15 overall, lasted just 4 ¹/₃ innings while giving up six runs. He has given up at least five runs in four of his last five starts, with the long ball central to those struggles.
“I’m a competitor, I want to win,” Weathers said. “I’m sick of putting us in a hole right now the last couple outings. It’s not a good feeling. You want to win ballgames as much as you can, so just got to get back to executing pitches better.”
The Yankees actually got to Yesavage, who had thrown 11 ¹/₃ shutout innings and given up just three base-runners across two career starts against them (including a dominant performance here in Game 2 of the ALDS), for five runs in five-plus innings. But it proved to be too little, too late, after trailing 5-0 in the fifth inning and 7-3 in the sixth.
To make matters worse, the Yankees lost one of their hottest hitters, Trent Grisham, in the sixth inning. He left the game with right hamstring tightness after taking second on a two-run single that pulled them within 7-5, which could ultimately land him on the injured list.
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The Yankees later threatened to complete the comeback, loading the bases in the seventh inning before Ryan McMahon flew out to end the threat against reliever Braydon Fisher
“At-bat wise, I thought we had really good at-bats throughout the night against Yesavage and their good pen guys,” manager Aaron Boone said.
Both of the home runs that Weathers gave up on Friday came in 2-2 counts with two outs, once again derailing his outing. He had a simple explanation for the growing problem.
“Bad pitches,” he said. “Just throwing bad pitches. That’s all I got.”
The Blue Jays’ first rally off Weathers began in the bottom of the first, when Ernie Clement reached on a swinging bunt and then took second on a wild pitch with two outs. Yankees killer Alejandro Kirk (3-for-3, walk, two RBIs), in his first game back after missing two months with a broken thumb, drove him in with a double just beyond the reach of Grisham in center field.
Kazuma Okamoto came up next and demolished a down-and-in slider, clobbering the two-run shot to the upper deck in left field for the 3-0 lead. Okamoto became only the 10th player in Blue Jays history to hit a home run to the 500 level, according to the team, though Statcast somehow only estimated it to travel 423 feet.
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In the second inning, Weathers retired the first two batters quickly before hitting No. 9 hitter Andrés Giménez with an errant 96 mph sinker. That brought up George Springer, who crushed a changeup down the middle for another two-run homer that extended the lead to 5-0.
“Stuff’s good, he’s throwing well, just unfortunately some of his mistakes have left the ballpark,” Boone said.
Yesavage had stranded five runners through four innings before the Yankees finally cashed in on a rally in the fifth, capped off by Cody Bellinger’s two-run homer. José Caballero’s double knocked Yesavage out of the game in the sixth, and Grisham’s two-run single pulled the Yankees within 7-5, but that was as close as they got.
“We end up with 10 base-runners against [Yesavage] in five innings,” Boone said, “you take your chances with that.”