Blue Jays at Yankees
Giancarlo Stanton can take all the time he needs to find consistency at the plate as long as Aaron Judge keeps raking. Judge will try to lead the New York Yankees to a series win when they host the Toronto Blue Jays in the finale of a four-game series on Sunday.
Judge bashed his sixth home run to highlight a 2-for-4 outing with three RBIs and two runs scored in Saturday's 9-1 triumph - his second homer of the series and the fifth time in the last 10 games that he recorded multiple hits. Stanton snapped an 11-game homer drought with a blast on Friday but could not keep the momentum going as he went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts on Saturday to drop his batting average to .195. The Blue Jays managed only four hits on Saturday in a rare poor performance offensively as first baseman Justin Smoak, who leads the team with 12 RBIs, received his first day off after starting the first 19 contests. Toronto could find hits hard to come by again on Sunday against New York ace Luis Severino, who opposes lefty Jaime Garcia.
TV: 1:05 p.m. ET, MLB Network, Sportsnet (Toronto), YES (New York)
PITCHING MATCHUP: Blue Jays LH Jaime Garcia (2-0, 3.86 ERA) vs. Yankees RH Luis Severino (3-1, 2.63)
Garcia got eight full days off between starts due to weather issues before finally toeing the rubber against Kansas City on Tuesday, and he earned a win by limiting the Royals to three runs on eight hits and a walk over five innings. The Mexico native has yet to allow more than three runs in an outing and owns 17 strikeouts in 16 1/3 innings. Garcia, who made eight starts for New York last season and was with the team in the playoffs, is making his first career start against the Yankees.
Severino bounced back from his first loss with a dominating effort against the Miami Marlins on Monday, when he struck out eight and yielded one hit across six scoreless innings. The Dominican Republic native was ripped for five runs in as many innings and eight hits in Boston on April 10 but yielded a total of two runs and seven hits over 19 innings in his other three turns. Severino started at Toronto on Opening Day and struck out seven while allowing one hit in 5 2/3 frames to earn the win.
WALK-OFFS
1. Blue Jays 2B Devon Travis (foot) sat out his second consecutive game on Saturday and is day-to-day.
2. New York 3B Miguel Andujar is 9-for-20 with six runs scored and six RBIs over the last five games.
3. Toronto OF Teoscar Hernandez went 0-for-4 with a pair of strikeouts on Saturday after driving in seven runs over the previous three contests.