SLEEPER

In the seventh inning of Thursday night's series opener in Toronto, Yankee announcer Michael Kay wondered if the Rogers Centre atmosphere was negatively impacting the performance of the Yankee team.  Kay characterized the Yankee performance as "sleepwalking."  Fans who watched may have other theories, but mine tilts toward starting pitching as the explanation.  Very simply Ivan Nova was horrid, again, and Jays' starter Brandon Morrow looked like he was on a late drive to claim the AL Cy Young Award!

Morrow shut down the Yankees for seven full innings in spite of a decline in his fast ball velocity from a top speed of 95 to a low of 88 by the sixth inning.  Regardless, he allowed only four Yankee hits and only two innings of anything resembling a Yankee threat to score even a single run.  In the fourth inning, Robinson Cano reached on a one-out single to center.  Nick Swisher ripped a deep fly ball to left that was caught by Anthony Gose as he crashed into the electronic scoreboard in left.  Cano running all the way was easily doubled off first by Gose and the relay throw by Kelly Johnson.  Inning over; Yankee threat squashed.

In the seventh, Cano led off with a double to left and Swisher followed with a walk.  Two on and no outs and Morrow obviously tiring.  Nevertheless, Morrow rallied and struck out Curtis Granderson who was "K'ed" for the 189th time this season.  Granderson personified Yankee offensive futility.  He is 2 for 16 on the road trip and his average has plummeted to .228.  Yikes!  Morrow followed his strike out of Granderson by forcing fly outs from Russell Martin and Raul Ibanez.  Inning over; Yankee threat squashed.

As for Mr. Nova's performance, he could not come close to matching Morrow.  He allowed a walk to defensive hero Gose in the third inning and that was followed immediately by a "gopher ball" to Brett Lawrie.  The two-run shot was Lawrie's 10th HR of the season.  In the fifth, Nova allowed two more runs on a single by Gose, a ground out by Lawrie that advanced Gose to second, a bunt single by Colby Rasmus, and a two-run double to right off the bat of Edwin Encarnacion. 

The Yankee bullpen, in the persons of Derek Lowe and David Aardsma, allowed tack-on runs in the seventh and eighth innings to end all doubt and eliminate any Yankee hope of a late rally.

By the time the post game rolled around, even Jack Curry was referring to the Yankees as a "sleepy" team.  Obviously New York did not play like a championship caliber team in quest of a division championship.  The Yankees missed a golden opportunity to widen the lead over the Orioles to two games.  Instead, the AL East Division race is a tight one-game differential.

Travel fatigue, lack of quality starting pitching, advanced age and declining performance, too many 'swing and miss' guys on the offensive side are just some of the theories that abound when the warts of this Yankee team are on display as prominently as they were on Thursday night.  Fans can decide for themselves what the causes of such a devastating loss actually are.  Regardless of the reasons, the Yankees' division championship hill got a little steeper on this late-September Thursday night.

Final score:  Toronto 6  New York 0.    

--Frank Gentry, BYB Writer

Twitter: @yankeefrank23

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