TORONTO — Yankees manager Aaron Boone said his team’s defensive performance was “just not good enough” after New York made four errors in an 8-4 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday night.
“We’ve got to, obviously, tighten it up,” Boone said. “Confident we will. We’ll continue to work at it. We have good defenders here, but tonight was obviously a rough night for us.”
Left-hander Max Fried and second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. made throwing errors, while first baseman Ben Rice and outfielder Jasson Domínguez made fielding errors.
The Yankees also made several miscues that didn’t count as errors, including Cody Bellinger losing a flyball in the twilight and no one covering the plate after Fried’s errant throw in the fifth inning.
“Today was a little shaky,” Bellinger said.
Davis Schneider scored from third base when Fried bounced his throw home on Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s chopper.
“Tough angle and just not a good throw,” said Fried, a three-time Gold Glove winner with Atlanta.
George Springer scored from second base after the ball rolled away from catcher J.C. Escarra.
The Yankees made seven errors in the three-game series, including a pair of poor throws that led to runs for Toronto in Monday’s series opener, a 4-1 Blue Jays win.
“We haven’t been playing that well on defence,” slugger Aaron Judge said. “We’ve got a lot of things we’ve got to clean up.”
New York also struggled defensively while getting swept in four games at Toronto from June 30 to July 3 as the Blue Jays leapfrogged the Yankees atop the AL East.
“Obviously, we’ve had two (crummy) series up here,” Boone said. “There’s no way around it. Maybe we’ll get a chance to come back here at some point and flip that script.”
New York has committed 52 errors in 102 games. The Yankees are 41-22 when they play error-free baseball but 15-24 when they make at least one miscue.
“It’s in our control so we’ll take care of it,” Judge said.
