TORONTO -- A familiar storyline has continued to plague the Yankees in recent weeks, as New York’s starting rotation gives the club a chance to win but the offense doesn’t provide the run support to back those strong outings.
That was the case on Saturday at Rogers Centre, as Cam Schlittler operated without his sharpest command but still managed to work 5 1/3 innings of one-run ball in the Yankees’ 4-1 loss to the Blue Jays. The 25-year-old racked up seven strikeouts on 97 pitches (56 strikes) while surrendering four hits and three walks.
On the offensive side, New York managed just four hits of its own while dropping its third straight game.
“Broken record. Obviously, we know we got to be better,” manager Aaron Boone said postgame while pointing to the Yankees’ lineup card. “This is who we got. These are our guys, and I continue to believe wholeheartedly [when] looking at these names, they’re all capable of doing really big things for us. But we got to go do it.”
Since the All-Star break, the Yankees rank 28th in the Majors in runs scored (85) and 29th in OPS (.625) as a team. But thanks to their pitching staff -- which boasts the lowest ERA (2.89) in baseball in that span -- they’ve managed to stay above .500 since the Midsummer Classic.
Schlittler did his part on Saturday, battling some traffic on his way to the solid final line in his chase for the American League Cy Young Award.
Schlittler bent but didn’t break early, stranding two runners in the first after a leadoff single and a two-out walk, striking out Kazuma Okamoto to escape the jam. Then, after a 1-2-3 second, Schlittler ran into trouble in the third after getting a quick out to open the frame.
Following Brett Bateman’s one-out walk, the Blue Jays brought their center fielder around to score with back-to-back singles. But after a mound visit from pitching coach Matt Blake, Schlittler bore down to get the next two outs, leaving runners on first and third.
“Give the defense a shot to make plays,” Schlittler said of how he was able to end his outing relatively unscathed. “Some quick innings there, but some long ones, as well. They battled, and they made me work. I should get out of the sixth there, but couldn’t.”
After escaping the third, the 6-foot-6 Schlittler retired the next seven batters he faced before a walk and single brought his outing to a close.
“Some days you got it, some you don’t,” Schlittler said of his start. “They got a great team here, and I just got to throw strikes. Free bases there, it’s frustrating. So, definitely got to be better. But I thought [the Blue Jays] put a good fight on.”
Schlittler, who has built a quick rivalry with the Blue Jays in a short amount of time, averaged 98.2 mph with his four-seam fastball on the afternoon, throwing the pitch 45 times and mixing in 26 cutters, 15 sinkers and 11 curveballs.
And despite the traffic on the bases, Schlittler had his swing-and-miss stuff working throughout, generating 14 whiffs on 40 swings.
At the end of the day, though, the Yankees’ bats stayed too quiet to snap their skid on a day that Toronto turned to a bullpen game to counter Schlittler.
“Yeah, it’s frustrating,” All-Star Ben Rice said of the recent offensive stretch. “I know we’ve had some good series here and there and won against some good teams. Of course, we happen to have just dropped three in a row. But we just got to keep going.
“It’s the only thing you can do.”
Boone said after the loss that he could “maybe shake up the order a little bit here and there” in order to get New York’s offense back on track. But he added he thought the team started off Saturday’s contest with some better at-bats.
The only run the Yankees managed against seven Toronto pitchers did come in the second inning, when George Lombard Jr. singled home Spencer Jones, who had a single of his own before stealing second base.
“It's a hard season,” Boone said. “We know adverse times are going to come in different ways. For our position-player group, it’s been a tough time. But the reality is, we’re winning a lot of games together. We’re doing a lot of things well.
“So we’re going to keep grinding our butts off, and we’re going to come in here and prepare tomorrow and try to put together a really good game plan.”