The interleague trip across the city for the Yankees failed to yield a series win, which they still haven’t done since the trip to Kansas City a couple weeks ago. Now, they’ll try and change that with a trip up north, as they head to Toronto to play the Blue Jays.
While the Yankees have struggled of late, the Blue Jays have struggled for most of this season. They’ll come into this weekend several games under .500 as their offense — which still looks quite strong on paper — has failed to live up to expectations. Despite good numbers from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and some surprisingly good efforts — including from former Yankee Isiah Kiner-Falefa — they’ve had some unexpected strugglers — Bo Bichette and George Springer included — dooming them to a slow start to this season.
Like the Yankees, they’ve also been fairly cold of late, having recently gone on a seven-game losing streak that was only snapped on Tuesday. Both teams will come in hoping to change their recent fortunes around when they open a four-game set tonight.
Thursday: Carlos Rodón vs. Jose Berrios (7:07 pm ET)
Rodón will come into this game off what are his two worst starts of the season so far. Where as back on June 15th, an inability to put away hitters cost him against the Red Sox, on June 21st, he gave up a ton of hard contact and three home runs against the Braves. Those two starts alone jacked up his ERA by nearly a full run after what had been a very solid first 14 starts. Now, he’ll take on a Blue Jays team that doomed him to one of his only previous iffy starts, as he left after four innings and three runs back in April.
For the season, Berríos’ numbers are pretty good, but they have taken a hit in recent weeks. Through April and his first seven starts, he had a 1.44 ERA and was holding opposing hitters to an OPS under .600. In the nine starts since then, he has a 5.06 ERA, 5.78 FIP, and hitters are OPSing .832.
Friday: Marcus Stroman vs. Yusei Kikuchi (7:07 pm ET)
After allowing the Braves to get off to a quick start on Saturday, Stroman buckled down and put in a solid outing, bouncing back after he struggled a bit in Boston the previous weekend. Now, he’ll have another meeting against the team he came up with. Back in April in the Yankees’ home opener against this Toronto team, he was very good, allowing just three hits in six shutout innings. While it’s only three starts to this point, he has generally been excellent when facing off against the Blue Jays.
Friday night will be another chance for the Yankees to try and end their weird struggles against Kikuchi. He shut them out opposite Stroman back in April, which came on the back of two one-run outings against the Yankees last year. His career ERA is 4.69, but the Yankees have only doomed him to one of 3.08 in 14 games.
Saturday: Nestor Cortes vs. Chris Bassit (3:07 pm ET)
Cortes wasn’t bad against the Braves, but the three runs he did allow ended up being a bit too many as his offense went to sleep. In general, he’s put up a perfectly solid 2.68 ERA and 3.53 FIP in the last month and change, which had come on the back off a couple iffy starts in early/mid-May.
With a career ERA+ of 117 and one this year of 114, Bassit is the picture of a perfectly nice and solid rotation arm. However, he’s gotten to that level thanks to an especially good June. Allowing just eight earned runs in five starts in June, he lowered his season ERA from 4.03 to 3.45 in his last five games.
Sunday: Gerrit Cole vs. Kevin Gausman (1:37 pm ET)
It was hard not to come away at least somewhat concerned about Cole after his start on Monday against the Mets. He allowed four home runs and his velocity was noticeably down at points. Ideally, that start was just a slight misstep in his return from injury, and he comes out on Sunday and does Gerrit Cole things. However, it will be something to keep an eye on.
After being one of the losing finalists in the AL Cy Young race to Cole last year, Gausman hasn’t been great so far this year. He has a 4.26 ERA and has allowed 13 home runs in 86.2 innings after giving up just 19 all of last year. That being said, he has been a bit better of late, including a 10-strikeout complete game shutout over the A’s earlier in June.
