CC Sabathia looked pretty splendid last Friday against the Indians, his first game back from a groin injury. Knowing that, and knowing how dominant Sabathia’s always been against the Blue Jays, you’d have thought that five whole runs from a motley Yankees lineup would be more than enough to beat Toronto Wednesday afternoon. Lo and behold, a few critical misses by Sabathia, several silly errors (plus a couple smiley, sheepish Andruw Jones fumbles in right), and one weird Joba Chamberlain appearance later, the Yankees are coming off an 8-5 loss and series dropped 2-1 to the last-place Jays. That series sucked.
So, a nice stretch of winnable games didn’t end up doing much for the injury-riddled Yankees. They went just 3-3 in six games against the Indians and Blue Jays. Up next, New York moves from the “winnable games” to the “really need to win at least some of these games.” After a night off, the Yankees will play seven of their next ten against the Orioles, who have a chance to pull within two games of New York’s first-place hold with wins tonight and tomorrow. Sandwiched in between, of course, is a visit with those third-place Rays. New York still leads the division, but they’re gonna need some bats back in the lineup to hold that ground, especially if the pitching and defense are going to crap out like they did today.