Blue Jays Recap: Pearce homers twice as winning streak comes to an end

We’re finally starting to see the real Toronto Blue Jays come around. They came into tonight’s game with a three-game winning streak that was jeopardized in the bottom of the second.

It was a walk in the park for the Toronto Blue Jays last night. Tonight was a whole different story against the New York Yankees.

Tonight’s pitching matchup featured Mat Latos, who was getting his third start of the season, and Masahiro Tanaka, who was making his sixth start of the season.

Thanks to Kevin Pillar and Brett Gardner, both the Blue Jays and Yankees had leadoff doubles in the first inning. However, it was New York who would get on the scoreboard first. Matt Holliday would hit a RBI double to left field making it 1-0 Yankees.

The damage in the bottom of the first was minimal courtesy of an unusual 1-3-6-2 double play.

Latos would get lit up even more in the bottom of the second. Both Aaron Hicks (5) and Gardner (3) hit two-run home runs to extend the Yankees lead to 5-0. In the bottom of the third, Latos gave up a Yankee Stadium Special to Aaron Judge to make it 6-0.

To add more salt to the wound, Gardner hit his second home run of the game and his fourth longball of the season. The Yankees lead inflated to 7-0 by the end of the bottom of the fourth.

Toronto would find life in the game when Steve Pearce homered to left field on a 2-1 count. Pearce finally hit his first home run of the season after finishing off April with .167 batting average.

After a Devon Travis double, Chris Coghlan singled to centre field to score Travis. The Blue Jays trailed the Yankees 7-2 in the top of the fifth.

Dominic Leone got the ball in the bottom of the fifth. Latos threw 84 pitches in four innings, allowed seven earned runs on 10 hits, one breaking ball, and five strikeouts.

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Chase Headley’s RBI single to centre extended the Yankees lead on the Blue Jays to 8-2 in the bottom of the sixth, helped by a Leone wild pitch to send the runners to scoring position.

Yankees catcher Austin Romine left the game with an undisclosed injury in the top of the seventh. Kyle Higashioka would finish the rest of the game behind the plate.

The Blue Jays continued to push for a comeback when Pearce homered once again, this time, to the left-field wall on the first pitch. That was Pearce’s fifth-multi home run game of his career as that ended Tanaka’s night.

Tanaka pitched threw 6.1 innings, allowed four runs on eight hits, and four strikeouts. Tyler Clippard came into the game, but he wouldn’t last two outs. The Blue Jays loaded up the bases with two outs for Russell Martin.

Dellin Betances came in after Clippard. Betances balked in a run after the ball fell from his hand when he attempted to throw a pitch. The Blue Jays cut the lead to 8-4.

Jason Grilli came into the game in the bottom of the seventh. He too would not last long after Judge homered for the second time of the game, the 12th of his season (which is now the American League lead). The 25-year old hit a two-run homer to left field on a full count, increasing the Yankees lead to 11-4.

Grilli would be pulled for Aaron Loup after the home run.

Tommy Layne pitched in the top of the eighth. The Blue Jays only came up with one more run in the game when Ryan Goins grounded out to score Justin Smoak from third. They trailed the Yankees 11-5.

As a quick side note, Pearce hit a double in that inning. He was 90 feet shy of completing the cycle as he went 4-for-4 on the night.

Jonathan Holder pitched in the top of the ninth to finish off the game. The final score was 11-5 for the Yankees (16-9), tying up the season series 1-1.

Tanaka (4-1 4.46 ERA) was credited with the win and Latos (0-1 6.60 ERA) was credited with the loss.

Next: Blue Jays: In Difficulty Lies Opportunity

The Blue Jays (9-18) will look to win their second series of the season when Marcus Stroman (2-2 2.97 ERA) will pitch in the series finale tomorrow night against CC Sabathia (2-1 4.34 ERA). First pitch gets underway at Yankee Stadium at 7:05 p.m. ET.