While Toronto Blue Jays catcher Dioner Navarro, left, looks on, New York Yankees' Derek Jeter, center, celebrates with Brian McCann after McCann hit a two-run homer during the seventh inning of the baseball game at Yankee Stadium, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014 in New York.Seth Wenig/The Associated Press
The Toronto Blue Jays head home for the final seven games of the season, their playoff pulse just barely audible as they prepare to face the Seattle Mariners and then the Baltimore Orioles.
The New York Yankees ensured that Toronto's final trip of the year ended in dismal fashion, carving out a 5-2 win on Sunday afternoon, highlighted by a Brett Gardner home run in the fifth inning.
Gardner's poke to the short right-field porch at Yankee Stadium was a milestone – the 15,000th home run in the long history of the storied franchise – and it lifted New York into a 2-1 lead it did not relinquish.
In the seventh it was the captain, Derek Jeter, who is retiring at the end of the season, who lifted the fans out of their seats, golfing an inside pitch from Toronto reliever Todd Redmond into left field for a double.
That brought home the first of three New York runs in the inning, which was capped by a two-run homer by Brian McCann off new Toronto reliever Daniel Norris.
After losing the first three games of the trip in Baltimore against the Orioles earlier in the week, the Blue Jays had only one win in four games at Yankee Stadium.
And talk about going out with a whimper.
The loss was Toronto's eighth in its past 10 games, not quite the hard-driving finish the club's executives were hoping for.
"It's disappointing," is how Toronto starter Drew Hutchison described the trip.
The Blue Jays will require a miracle of epic proportions over the final seven games to be able to grab one of the American League wild-card playoff berths.
Heading into Sunday's play, Toronto was in sixth place among teams fighting it out for two spots, 4 1/2 games behind the Kansas City Royals.
And the push will have to start on Monday against the Mariners – one of the teams that the Blue Jays trail in the wild-card race – who are in Toronto for a four-game set.
The Blue Jays wind up their season with three games against the Orioles.
Sunday's game featured the return from the disabled list of Yankee right-hander Masahiro Tanaka, who missed 65 games with right elbow inflammation that derailed what was a great start to his major-league career.
Tanaka, 25, was a proved star in Japan before he signed a seven-year contract worth $155-million (U.S.) with the Yankees in January.
And he was headed quite probably to AL rookie-of-the-year honours, going 12-4 in his first 18 starts with a 2.51 earned-run average before being injured.
Tanaka did not display too much rust from his long layoff, allowing just one Toronto run off five hits in 5 1/3 innings.
Hutchison (10-13) got the start for Toronto and struggled with his control and could not get out of the fifth inning. Hutchison had six strikeouts but he also walked three batters, his pitch count up to 94 when he departed.
"Just a little bit off, went into a lot of deep counts," Hutchison said. "My fastball command just a little bit off, which led to those deep counts, and just made a couple of mistakes."
Before the game the Blue Jays announced that the league has agreed to suspend pitcher Marcus Stroman for five games, instead of the original penalty of six, for his throwing at the head of a Baltimore batter on Sept. 15.
It was a deal that was worked out between the player's union and the league office, according to Toronto general manager Alex Anthopoulos.
It means that Stroman will be available to make one more start during the Baltimore series if Toronto manager John Gibbons deems it necessary.