The hottest team in baseball just did something that hasn’t been done in nearly 100 years. Thursday night the Toronto Blue Jays completed the four-game sweep of the AL East rival New York Yankees (TOR 6, NYY 4) at Yankee Stadium. The Blue Jays are the first team to sweep a four-game series in Yankee Stadium without the Yankees holding a single lead in the series since 1926.
This is the first time the Yankees have been swept in a four-game series at home since May 22-25, 2003 in general. The Blue Jays did the honors in that series as well, coincidentally enough.
Toronto has won eight straight games overall to climb to within a half-game of New York for the second wild-card spot. The Yankees have lost six straight games — this is the first time they’ve lost six straight home games since 2011 — to fall one game behind the Red Sox for the top wild-card spot. Toronto has gained nine games in the standings in two weeks.
Thursday’s win was made possible by Bo Bichette’s leadoff homer and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s door-slamming homer in the ninth. Guerrero cleared 100 RBI with his homer and is only the sixth player in AL/NL history with 40 homers, 100 runs, and 100 RBI at age 22 or younger, joining Ronald Acuña Jr., Joe DiMaggio, Eddie Mathews, Mel Ott, and Alex Rodriguez.
In the four-game series, the Yankees scored eight runs total and had four extra-base hits (one three-run homer, one two-run homer, two solo homers). As noted, they never held a single lead in the four games, and the score was tied for only five innings. The Yankees are now 2-10 since their 13-game winning streak.
The Blue Jays will look to continue their winning streak against the Orioles this weekend. They’ll play four games in three days (doubleheader Saturday). The Yankees will go on the “road” to play three games against the similarly scuffling Mets at Citi Field.
