Pitcher Jason Grilli #37 of the Toronto Blue Jays leaves the game in the eighth inning against the New York Yankees as manager John Gibbons #5 and teammate Russell Martin #55 look on at Yankee Stadium on September 6, 2016 in the Bronx borough of New York City.Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
A frustrated Russell Martin pounded his arm into the padding of the Blue Jays' dugout bench at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night after realizing he had reinjured his left knee.
Toronto slugger Josh Donaldson refused to speak to reporters after he was held hitless for the fourth successive outing in a 2-0 New York victory, which gave the Yankees a three-game sweep over their American League East rival.
The optics are anything but positive these days for the faltering Blue Jays and the timing could not be worse with the Boston Red Sox coming to Rogers Centre this weekend to begin what will be Toronto's most pivotal series of the season.
It will be a three-game battle for first place at a sold-out Rogers Centre, beginning Friday night when Toronto starts all-star pitcher Marco Estrada against the Red Sox's Rick Porcello, who will be looking for win No. 20.
The Red Sox arrive with a one-game lead over Toronto in a tightly bunched AL East in which the top four teams are separated by 4 1/2 games heading into Thursday's schedule.
At the beginning of play Friday, the Red Sox, the Blue Jays, the Baltimore Orioles and the Yankees will all have 23 games left in what is shaping up as an epic battle for the playoffs.
The last time four teams in the same division were embroiled in a playoff dogfight of this intensity this late in the season was in 2007, when five games separated the first- and fourth-placed teams in the National League West on Sept. 8.
So the timing is poor for the Blue Jays, who have lost five of their past six and nine of their past 16, to be performing so raggedly. They have slipped out of first place for the first time since Aug. 13.
"It's the time of the year where if you struggle, it's a bit magnified," Martin was quoted by MLB.com after Wednesday's setback. "If you do well, everybody gets excited.
We had a tough series, you put it behind us and keep moving forward.
"We're right in it. We just need either a big play or a big hit somewhere to get us going in the right direction, but you're not going to see any panic from me. … I believe in my team and I believe we're not too worried."
The veteran Blue Jays catcher was putting up a good front considering he has to be concerned about the recurrence of a sore left knee, which caused him to miss a couple of games in July after wrenching it in a fall.
Martin tweaked the same knee during an at-bat early Wednesday against the Yankees, but remained in the game until the top of the ninth inning when he was pinch-hit for by Dioner Navarro, the team's backup catcher.
The Blue Jays are hoping that after a day off Thursday, Martin will be ready on Friday.
The 33-year-old has helped carry a sputtering offence with a .269 batting average since Aug. 1, with 10 home runs with 25 runs batted in over 30 games.
The Red Sox are on a high after moving into sole possession of first place in the East for the first time since July 21.
Boston is led by David Ortiz, its affable designated hitter who, at the age of 40, is thoroughly enjoying what he has said will be his swan song in the majors.
And Ortiz is hardly going quietly into the night, having mashed 31 home runs and a major-league-leading 44 doubles to go along with a .318 average.
With Ortiz leading the attack, the Red Sox sport MLB's most potent attack with 764 runs scored as of Thursday, 82 more than the AL's second highest team, the Texas Rangers.
The Blue Jays will have to find a way to rein in Ortiz if they hope to have a successful weekend as the DH tends to tear the cover off the ball at Rogers Centre.
During his 20-year career, Ortiz has stroked 40 home runs at Rogers Centre, more than any other visiting player. Ortiz victimized Roy Halladay more than any other Toronto pitcher, taking him long six times.