Rain postpones crucial opener vs. Yanks

NEW YORK -- The highly anticipated series between the Yankees and Blue Jays will have to wait for another day, as Thursday night's game at Yankee Stadium was postponed because of rain.

Thursday's game was rescheduled as part of a single-admission doubleheader on Saturday. The first game on Saturday will be played at 1:05 p.m. ET, with another one scheduled to start 30 minutes after that one ends.

Fans holding tickets for Thursday's game may exchange them for any regular-season game at Yankee Stadium through the end of 2016 season pending availability. A limited number of tickets are still available for Saturday's doubleheader.

Blue Jays manager John Gibbons and Yankees manager Joe Girardi each announced Thursday evening that their scheduled starters will be moved back one day. That means Toronto left-hander David Price will take on New York right-hander Luis Severino when the series gets underway Friday.

Toronto will start right-hander Marco Estrada on Saturday afternoon with right-hander Marcus Stroman making his season debut in Game 2. The Blue Jays will then use knuckleballer R.A. Dickey in the series finale Sunday afternoon as previously scheduled.

When the game was officially postponed, Price went onto the field and had a light throwing session. He typically throws almost every day, so it was business as usual and Price said his approach to the outing doesn't change.

"I'll be ready to go tomorrow," said Price, who is 11-7 with a 4.21 ERA in 29 career outings against the Yankees.

The division-rivals Yankees and Blue Jays have seven games remaining against each other before the end of the year. The first four of those are scheduled to take place here in New York, with three more to follow from Sept. 21-23 at Rogers Centre.

The way those two series unfold with go a long way in deciding which team ends up winning the American League East. There currently is just 1 1/2 games separating the two teams in the standings, which makes every game between these two sides crucial.

"Every series we play is important now," said Price, who is 5-1 with a 2.15 ERA since joining Toronto. "It's because of the way these guys played the first half of the season, and once we made the trades, we've played really good baseball.

"Every game that we play, every series that we play from here on out is very important. And you can't put any more importance on any certain game or any certain series, but we all know that we need to win games and keep playing the same baseball that we've been playing."