Yankees shut out for second straight game for first time since 1999
Yankees had played 2,665 games without being shut out two times in a row. Blue Jays do the job and creep closer in AL East.
By
Dave Brown
•
2 min read
Starting pitchers David Price and Marco Estrada, along with four relievers in the Toronto Blue Jays bullpen, listen up. You've done something amazing.
In finishing off the New York Yankees with a 2-0 victory Sunday afternoon, the Blue Jays not only completed a three-game sweep at Yankee Stadium to move within 1 1/2 games of first place, but they also shut out the Bronx Bombers for a second straight game.
That had not been done since May 12 and 13, 1999 -- a span of 2,665 games between shutouts, a major league record. The Yankees had three hits and drew four walks, but went 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position, stranding seven runners overall. Not enough baserunners to push one across the plate -- again. Aaron Sanchez, LaTroy Hawkins and Roberto Osuna went 2 2/3 innings to off Estrada's effective start. Sanchez and Mark Lowe kept the Yankees scoreless after Price's outing Saturday.
The Yankees are second in the majors (behind the Blue Jays) in runs scored, and they usually rank high there (though they fell off the pace a bit in 2013 and 2014).
Not since starters Chuck Finley and Omar Olivares, along with three relievers (Troy Percival twice), led the Angels to a pair of shutouts at Yankee Stadium II, had a pitching staff kept the Yankees off the scoreboard for two straight games.
Hey, let's check out who was in the Yankees lineup May 13, 1999:
Oh, yeah, all of the big names were there. Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Paul O'Neill, Jorge Posada. Six hits isn't much, but they drew seven walks. Going 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position will just ruin your day. This was a Yankees team that, twice in '99, had scored as many as 21 runs in a game.
The Yanks even wasted a well-pitched game by Hideki Irabu -- aside from a home run by Mo Vaughn (!). Terry Collins was managing the Angels, who were having a terrible season, ending up with 92 losses. And yet, they walked out of Yankee Stadium with a three-game sweep for the first time since 1984. Baseball, as Joaquin Andujar said, can be described with one word phrase: You never know.
The 1999 season ended just fine for the Yankees, who would win 98 games in the regular season, along with the second of three straight World Series championships come October.
From the Los Angeles Times account of the game:
Olivares also got the always-dangerous O'Neill to ground into a 4-6-3 double play with the bases loaded to end the fifth, which Collins called "the biggest out of the game."
Center fielder Garret Anderson, who went eight for 13 in the series, helped preserve the shutout with a diving catch of Posada's third-inning flare to the left-center-field gap with a runner on second and no one out.
And did the Times take note of the previous time the damn Yankees had been shut out in back-to-back games? It did: It was May 28-29, 1996, when the Angels did it. Chuck Finley and Troy Percival teamed up to finish them off that time, too.
The Yankees also won the World Series in '96.
