Yankees 6, Blue Jays 7: Defensive mistakes doom the Bombers in loss to Toronto

The Yankees fell behind by six runs, somehow came back to tie the game, denying Mark Buehrle his second career victory against the Yanks, but the Toronto Blue Jays were able to walk it off in the bottom of the 9th, defeating the Yankees, 7-6, on Tuesday night at the Rogers Centre, adding another game to their lead over the Bombers in the AL East.

The Blue Jays struck first against Phelps in the 4th inning on a big blast by Dioner Navarro. Adam Lind and Edwin Encarnacion reached on singles to begin the innings, then two batters later, Navarro took Phelps deep to right field for his fourth homerun of the season, putting Toronto up 3-0 -- a deficit that seemed pretty hard for the Yankees' offense to overcome.

Toronto doubled their lead an inning later in the 5th, mostly due to a mental mistake made by Derek Jeter with two outs in the inning. After Munenori Kawasaki and Jose Reyes singled to open the frame, Phelps set down the next two Jays, but with two down, Encarnacion hit a groundball to Jeter, who must have forgotten how many outs there were, as he looked to third, and then to second before firing a later throw to first, loading the bases.

With Toronto now in a better position to do some damage, Colby Rasmus hit a long single off of the top of the right field wall, clearing the bases to make it a 6-0 game.

Phelps finished off of the inning, but that was all he would see. Pitching pretty well before he entered the 4th inning, Phelps was charged with all six runs in eight hits and a walk, with seven strikeouts for the second start in a row.

Jeter began the Yankees' comeback in the 6th inning by making up for his defensive mistake, hitting a solo homerun off of Buehrle, his second long ball of the season, putting the Yankees on the board to make it a 6-1 game. Defense aside, Jeter has been swinging the bat well lately, and is starting to actually help the Yankees there.

In the 7th, Brian McCann hit a one-out double, his second base hit of the night, then a batter later, Brian Roberts hit a homerun, a two-run shot that would have tied the game if not for Jeter in the 5th, pulling the Yankees to within 6-3 -- it was Roberts' 3rd of the season, first since May 25.

Buehrle rebounded by retiring Yangervis Solarte, who collected a base hit in his first at-bat, but hit night ended a batter later when Brett Gardner doubled off of him with two outs.

Dustin McGowan took over for Buehrle, who was no longer in line for his first win over the Yankees in 10 years after giving up four runs on eight hits in 6.2 innings, and he walked Jeter to begin his night, then served up an RBI single to Jacoby Ellsbury, scoring Gardner, then Mark Teixeira hit s ground ball to Reyes, who's throw bounced, which lead to Teixeira running into Encarnacion at first base, and as the ball got by, two runs score to tie the game at 6-6.

After Matt Thornton's scoreless 6th inning, Dellin Betances took over in the 6th, set down the Jays in order without recording a strikeouts (odd, indeed), then ran into some trouble in the 7th, where he worked his way out of a bases loaded jam with one away, getting a force out at home, and a strikeout to end the inning.

Then on to the 9th, the Yankees failed to score when Gardner opened the inning with a single, but the Blue Jays didn't fail to do so in the bottom half of the inning. Reyes lead off with a double against Adam Warren, then Melky Cabrera dropped down a bunt, to which Solarte's throw to first was off target, going down the right field line, scoring Reyes to win the game for the Blue Jays.

The Yankees have now dropped three straight as they head into the series final with Toronto on Wednesday night. Hiroki Kuroda will be on the mound for the Yankees, facing off against Drew Hutchinson at 7:07 pm ET.

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