Full Moon, Friday the 13th Loss for Yanks — Sept 13, 2019: Toronto 5 NY 4

September 14, 2019 paperbacklou 2019 0

It was a full moon, It was Friday the 13th. It was Tanaka Friday. It was close to midnight in Toronto — the witching hour. It was a walkoff homerun by Toronto’s Bo Bichette in the 12th inning. The Yankees had been bewitched — scoring all 5 of their runs in the 5th inning.

Had the Yankees gotten the game to the 13th inning, maybe their luck would have changed. But Manager Aaron Boone held back Aroldis Chapman in the tie game and the top of the Toronto lineup coming up in the 12th, and instead left in Tyler Lyons (who had pitched a scoreless 11th), and he was greeted with a lead-off, walk-off homer by DH and lead-off hitter Bo Bichette (he of the 11-18-.313 slash line in 179 at bats).

Later, Bichette revealed that he told his teammates in the dugout that if the Yankees left in lefty reliever Tyler Lyons and he threw him a slider, he was going to hit it out. The Yankees did. Lyons did, and he did. Witch craft.

Disappointing Loss

We’d be Lyons to you if we weren’t disappointed. With the loss coupled with wins by Houston and Los Angeles, the Yanks still have the best record in baseball but by 1 game now.

Voodoo-Doll Offense

Aaron Judge was given the night off. He had one pinch hit appearance and went 0-1. With Edwin Encarnacion and Gary Sanchez both out (and of course Giancarlo Stanton and Mike Tauchman and Aaron Hicks) the Yankee lineup was not what it could have been.  It seems someone has been sticking voodoo doll pins into Yankee batters all season; as soon as someone gets hot they get hurt.

Still they scored those 5 runs in the 5th.  Toronto starter and former Met Anthony Kay (no relation) had been cruising until he met the Yanks for the 3rd time in the order. Brett Gardner started it off with a double and then Clint Frazier drove him in with a line-drive double to the right-field corner.

Austin Romine and DJ LeMahieu singled and then Luke Voit hit a game-tying grounder to 3rd that 3rd baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. made a bad play on — seemingly hexed, he threw the ball to the one base he couldn’t get anyone out — 2nd base, where LeMahieu was called safe. It looked like a good 3rd baseman (visions of Scott Brosius came to mind) would have fired home to get Romine trying to score and an average 3rd baseman would’ve thrown to 1st for the easy out. Yankee fans on twitter started to argue about what Miguel Andujar would have done.

Gio Urshela then hit a go-ahead 2-RBI single.

The Pitching

Tanaka struggled through 5 innings. Trailing 3-0, the Yankee offense put him on top 5-3. He immediately gave one back and left after 5 innings with a precarious 5-4 lead.

Tommy Kahnle pitched a terrific 6th — helped out by DJ LeMahieu playing 1st base — who snared a line drive down the line to turn a 1-out, 1-on double and possible big inning into an inning-ending double play.

But Adam Ottavino coughed up the lead in the 7th, when the witches got to him and he balked in a run. Zack Britton pitched a scoreless 8th, and Luis Cessa pitched a scoreless 9th and 10th. Tyler Lyons pitched a scoreless 11th to get it to that fateful 12th.

Etcetera

DJ LeMahieu went 2 for 6 and is batting .325. Tim Anderson of the White Sox leads with a .334 average.

Aaron Boone reported that the injuries to both Edwin Encarnacion and Gary Sanchez are not considered severe and they should be back soon. The only good news of the Full Moon Friday the 13th night.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=401076943

 

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