Beltran loses ball in sun to detriment of Severino

TORONTO -- The sunglasses covering Carlos Beltran's eyes were of little assistance in the third inning on Sunday, when a seemingly routine Troy Tulowitzki fly ball forced the outfielder to take cover, a play that opened the door for a big Blue Jays inning off Luis Severino.

Beltran had settled under the medium-depth drive but lost sight of the ball at the most crucial moment. The ball struck Beltran in the back on what was eventually scored a double, and the deciding three runs followed in the Yankees' 3-1 loss at Rogers Centre.

"As soon as the ball was hit, I saw it all the way," Beltran said. "I lost it when it was basically getting close to me. I couldn't do anything. The ball hit me in the back. Unfortunately, it would have been a different story if I had caught that ball."

The Blue Jays took advantage. Josh Donaldson pounced on a hanging slider for a run-scoring single and Jose Bautista unloaded on another slider for two-run homer to center, the only runs scored off Severino as the 21-year-old accepted the loss.

"That's part of the game," Severino said through an interpreter, "and that happens in the game."

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Beltran had an eventful weekend in Toronto, rescuing the Yankees with a clutch pinch-hit homer on Friday before slugging another on Saturday. Yet he had a helpless feeling as he stood in right field for the rest of the inning, watching Severino try to wriggle free.

"I just hoped to get out of the inning, hopefully nobody could score," Beltran said. "But Donaldson hit it back, Tulowitzki [scored], then Bautista hit the home run. That's baseball."

The play was initially scored as an error on Beltran, but it was later changed to credit Tulowitzki with a hit. Yankees manager Joe Girardi said that most similar blinding-sun plays are scored as hits, so he had no issue with the scoring.

"It's happened to anyone that's ever played the game," Girardi said. "It's happened. It's unfortunate. I saw it happen to Kevin Pillar the other day here in the first inning when they were playing the A's, and he's a guy that plays here every day. It's unfortunate, it happens, but Carlos was pretty big for us this series."

Severino has posted back-to-back quality starts, ringing up 18 strikeouts against four walks in the first 17 innings of his career, and the Yankees couldn't help but imagine how much better Severino's 3.18 ERA should look.

"I thought he was great," Alex Rodriguez said. "With the exception of that one inning -- and he could have gotten out of that, obviously -- I thought he threw the ball better. He keeps getting better each and every start. You could easily say six [innings] with no runs."