Yankees again can't do much at the plate in loss to Blue Jays
New York Yankees pitcher Cam Schlittler (31) throws to a Toronto Blue Jays batter during the first inning of a baseball game in Toronto, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (Jon Blacker/The Canadian Press via AP) Credit: Jon Blacker/The Canadian Press v/Jon Blacker
TORONTO — Offense (or “offence,” as they write it here) — any way you spell it, the Yankees’ continues to stink.
And it continues to further bury their already slim chances of earning the AL East title.
Piggybacking a five-hit attack that produced one run Friday — which followed a four-hit bombardment that produced no runs on Thursday — the Yankees churned out four hits Saturday in a 4-1 loss to the Blue Jays.
Despite pitching at the level that has made him one of the American League Cy Young Award favorites, Cam Schlittler was the latest starter victimized by the o-ffensive output.
Schlittler got a no-decision after allowing one run in 5 1⁄3 innings. On Friday night, Gerrit Cole took the loss after allowing two runs (one earned) in six innings in Toronto’s 3-1 victory. And on Thursday, Max Fried took the loss despite allowing one run in five innings in the Mariners’ 1-0 victory.
“Broken record. Obviously, we know we’ve got to be better,” said Aaron Boone, who started his postgame news conference by saying he might try to shake up the lineup to stir the offense, though he didn’t specify what that meant. “This is who we got. These are our guys, and I continue to believe wholeheartedly, looking at these names, all capable of doing really big things for us. But we’ve got to go do it. We can talk all about that, but we’ve gotta go make it happen.”
During this roughly two-month stretch of offensive struggles, typically it’s been an opposition starter throttling the Yankees. On Saturday, the Blue Jays went the bullpen-game route and were just as successful.
Starting with opener Braydon Fisher and ending with closer Louis Varland, seven Toronto relievers tag-teamed to shut the Yankees down.
Their lone run came in the second inning when Spencer Jones led off with a single, stole second with one out and scored on a single by George Lombard Jr. Lombard took second on the throw home, but after Austin Wells struck out to end the second, the Yankees did not get another runner as far as second.
“Of course, you’re going to go through the ups and downs in a season,” said Ben Rice, who has hit 32 home runs but has 10 hits in his last 81 at-bats to drop his batting average to .251 and his OPS to .875. “I’d say we definitely wouldn’t ever expect it to go so long. But with that being said, we have to agree with Boonie. We’re going to come out of it. Once we get rolling, we’ll hopefully start stringing more wins together.”
In 27 games since the All-Star break, the Yankees have scored one or fewer runs eight times (1-7), two or fewer runs 15 times (6-9) and three or fewer runs 19 times (9-10).
During the Yankees’ last 17 games, their starting pitchers have compiled a 1.05 ERA and a 0.87 WHIP in 14 of them, but the team has gone 7-7.
“I don’t know,” Wells said of the offensive issues. “I feel like if I had an answer to that question, we’d probably be scoring more runs. I don’t have the answer to that one.”
Wells is one of the few who have produced at the plate of late, going 10-for-30 in his last 14 games. The Yankees’ primary catcher has found it especially frustrating while watching the efforts of the pitching staff, the rotation in particular, go unrewarded too often.
“It’s tough. Those guys are pitching amazing,” he said. “Every guy that goes out there, putting up zeros, keeping us close in the game all the way until the end. They’re doing a great job keeping us in games, allowing us to win games by one or two runs. They’ve been great.”
Charles McAdoo doubled home a run against losing pitcher Brent Headrick in the seventh and singled home a run against Tim Hill in the eighth.
After allowing a run in the third on Alejandro Kirk’s RBI single, Schlittler pitched out of a first-and-third, one-out jam to keep the score tied. Paul Blackburn escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the seventh after Toronto went ahead 2-1.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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