Dan Martin, Post:
"We just haven't been playing good baseball,'' [Brett] Gardner said after the Yankees lost to Toronto, 6-3 in The Bronx. . . .
Their September swoon continued with a fifth-straight defeat, which matches their longest losing streak of the season.
Coupled with Boston's win over Tampa Bay, the Yankees found themselves out of the top wild-card spot for the first time since mid-August.
And with nine losses in their last 11 games — as well as Toronto storming up the standings — the Yankees are in ever-increasing danger of missing out on the postseason, since the Blue Jays are just 1½ games back of the Yankees after winning seven in a row. . . .
"This is the group we absolutely believe in,'' the manager [Aaron Boone] said. "It's certainly been a frustrating several days" . . .
Trailing 3-0 in the fifth, the Yankees got a two-out, three-run homer from Gardner to tie the game and breathe some life into the Stadium. . . .
The momentum didn't last long.
Marcus Semien opened the seventh with an infield single to shortstop off Clay Holmes and moved to second on a wild, ill-advised throw to first by Andrew Velazquez. . . . Teoscar Hernandez grounded a single through the right side of the infield to score Semien and give Toronto a 4-3 lead.
The Blue Jays added a run off Chad Green in the eighth on a sacrifice fly and a Guerrero home run against Aroldis Chapman in the ninth, and the Yankees couldn't rally against Toronto's troubled pen.
Kristie Ackert, Daily News:
It was a season high-tying fifth straight loss for the Yankees (78-61), who dropped their second straight series. The loss on the heels of the Red Sox win over the Rays put Boston in the top AL Wild Card spot ahead of the Yankees, who are now in the second spot with the Blue Jays 1.5 game back and just one in the loss column. . . .
The Yankees dropped to 28-35 against the AL East this season. . . .
[T]he Bombers went [22 straight innings] without an extra-base hit. . . .
The Yankees bullpen has been leaned on heavily this season because of injuries and the number of close games they have played. And Chapman has struggled with his delivery.
The offense, however, was built specifically to overcome issues like that and it's been missing in these last 11 games.
Mike Vaccaro, Post:
The Yankees yawned their way through a couple of innings, spotted the Blue Jays another 3-0 lead. And yet as Brett Gardner waited on a 3-and-2 pitch from Alek Manoah, two outs and two on the fifth, you could sense what was going to happen in the seconds before it actually happened. Manoah grooved a fastball. Gardner got the bat head out quickly.
And off it went.
Of course this was part of the plan. Of course the last player who shared a championship Yankees clubhouse with Jeter was going to be the one sent to deliver a message from a glorious past: calm down. All is well. Exhale. Everything will be fine. [[Y]ou just knew [Jeter] was going to transmit some old pixie dust toward The Bronx.]
It was 3-3. Surely this was now going to end 10-3, Yankees.
It ended 6-3, Blue Jays.
It was as damaging a loss as the Yankees have suffered through in this recent collection of theirs. They are no longer in the wild-card lead; somehow the Red Sox leapfrogged them. They have invited the Jays back into the race after they were all but given last rites two weeks ago. The streak is now five in a row, nine out of 11, with the Jays going for an unthinkable four-game sweep Thursday.
Mystique and Aura are dead for the time being at Yankee Stadium.
Fear and loathing have officially established squatter's rights. . . .
[Boone's] team has broken apart this week, following two inexplicable losses to the Orioles last weekend with three one-sided losses to a scorching-hot Blue Jays team . . .
This weekend's Subway Series is slowly starting to shape up as a three-game elimination round-robin held in between solemn pomp and circumstance. . . .
The Mets can't get out of their own way. The Yankees can't get out of their own way. And before you ask the age-old question — "can't anyone here play this game?" — the answer right now, both ends of the Triboro Bridge, is a simple one: No. . . .
[W]e haven't seen the Yankees' best in a week and a half now. . . . We are getting a good look at the Yankees of May and June now . . .
[O]n the day when Derek Jeter took his first official steps through the corridors of forever . . . it should have been easy to summon the services of Mystique and Aura. Even with the script already written. That script winds up in the furnace.
Dan Martin, Post:
Aroldis Chapman was bad again in Wednesday's 6-3 loss to the Blue Jays, giving up a monstrous homer to Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. to lead off the ninth inning at the Stadium.
The left-hander, who walked two of the four batters he faced after Guerrero and was removed for Wandy Peralta, has given up four runs in his past seven innings (over eight appearances) . . . [H]e has walked eight in that span.
His velocity was consistently in the mid-90s — a speed at which Chapman can't get batters out consistently. . . .
Coupled with the loss of Zack Britton to elbow surgery, the back end of the Yankees' bullpen is a shell of what it was expected to be as the team desperately tries to hold onto a playoff spot.
Kristie Ackert, Daily News:
Gleyber Torres . . . was on the bench for the second straight game. . . .
The move to the bench for Torres comes on the heels of some sloppy defense, including being charged with his 15th error of the season in the series opener against the Blue Jays Monday. . . .
The 24-year-old is in his second straight year where his power numbers have disappeared and his offense is not enough to cover his defensive mistakes.
In 103 games this season, Torres is hitting .253/.325/.347 with a 672 OPS. He has six home runs and 23 total extra-base hits in 372 at-bats this season. It's a far cry from when he hit 38 homers in 2019 and the Yankees decided his bat was enough to cover for some sloppy defense.
Kristie Ackert, Daily News:
The Yankees remained . . . tight-lipped about Gerrit Cole's prognosis after he left Tuesday night's game with a tight left hamstring. . . .
Cole has not been sent for an MRI on his leg and the Yankees manager said they were still monitoring whether he would need one.
Cole said he felt his hamstring tighten up on him after landing funny on a pitch in the fourth inning of the Yankees' 5-1 loss to the Blue Jays. . . .
Cole's next scheduled start would be Sunday night at Citi Field in a nationally broadcast game against the Mets.
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