Ivan Nova hung a breaking pitch and the Yankees got Smoak-ed Saturday afternoon in a 6-0 home loss to the charging Toronto Blue Jays. And if the Yanks don’t start playing better, their division lead could go up in flames.
Toronto’s Justin Smoak broke open a scoreless game in the sixth inning by hammering a do-nothing Nova curveball for a grand slam that backed David Price and jacked up the heat on the Yankees.
The Yanks’ loss, their second in two days to Toronto, further tightens the race in the American League East. The second-place Blue Jays moved to within 2½ games of the Yankees by winning their seventh straight.
“They’re getting closer and closer, but I still feel like we can win some games against them and take off,” Nova said. The Yanks will get a chance to prove that Sunday when they send their ace, Masahiro Tanaka, to the mound against Marco Estrada.
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Howard Simmons/New York Daily News Justin Smoak breaks open tight game in the 6th with a grand slam off Yankee starter Ivan Nova.
“You can make a lot of these two games, and obviously I said this was an important series going in,” Joe Girardi said. “But really what’s going to determine the division is, you got two months to go and it’s how you play in the next two months, not two games.
“One thing I know about this group, they’re very resilient and they’ve bounced back very well. We’ll be back (Sunday).”
For Girardi’s sake, the offense had better return, too. The Yankees, who have scored the second-most runs in the majors, behind only Toronto, have dropped three out of four games. They’ve scored only four runs in that span while batting just .176 — they had hit .323 in their previous seven contests. Saturday was the fourth time this year they have been shut out.
Price (11-4) had a lot to do with that, throwing seven scoreless innings, allowing only three singles. The Yanks twice had two runners on base against him in the same inning, but he got Chase Headley on a fly to center to end the fourth and got Brendan Ryan to pop up to spike a chance in the seventh.
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Howard Simmons/New York Daily News Ivan Nova gets Yanked after giving up Justin Smoak's 6th-inning grand slam at the Stadium.
“He was just being who he is,” Girardi said of the Jays’ ace lefty. But in their last two outings against Price, the Yankees had turned him into the equivalent of a batting-practice pitcher, pounding him for 16 runs in just 4.1 innings.
“I know that a few starts we’ve faced him before, we have done well, but today he was able to locate and got us off-balance,” said Carlos Beltran, who had one of the singles off Price.
With Price dominating and Troy Tulowitzki contributing a homer in front of 45,255, the Jays’ two enormous deadline acquisitions had a huge hand in the victory. The Yanks elected to retain their top prospects instead of mortgaging them for win-now help and the contrast stood out on the field Saturday.
Oddly enough, the pitch that undid Nova was perhaps his best weapon early. He struck out six hitters on curves in breezing through the first five frames. But he lost the strike zone in the sixth, loading the bases on this sequence — walk, single, walk — to set up Smoak.
Smoak hit the first grand slam at Yankee Stadium, new or old, by a Blue Jays player, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He pumped his fist and yelled in celebration as he rounded first.
Howard Simmons/New York Daily News The Blue Jays celebrate as the Yankees' lead in the AL East is down to 2 1/2 games.
Adam Warren was warming up while the inning was crumbling, but Girardi elected to stick with Nova. The manager hoped Nova could get a double-play grounder and did not mind that the righty, who is coming off Tommy John surgery, had already passed his season-high in pitches.
Nova (4-4) admitted he was trying to bounce the curve he threw Smoak — pitch No. 102, eight more than his previous high. But it didn’t bounce until it landed beyond the right-center wall.
“It was my mistake,” Nova said. “I paid for it.”
It cost the Yankees a series against their closest competitor in the division, the first series they’ve lost since the one against the Angels that ended July 1. There’s still a long way to go this season, but a victory Sunday would stem the pressure that will only increase on the Yankees if they continue to flail on offense.
“That’s the way baseball is, man,” Beltran said. “We faced R.A. Dickey (Friday), we couldn’t do anything against him. Today, Price. Hopefully (Sunday), we can score some runs and give Tanaka a win.”