Blue Jays on fire ahead of big series with Yankees

TORONTO – Well now, if the New York Yankees thought the Toronto Blue Jays were coming in hot when they met last weekend in the Bronx, they’re going to need some new adjectives for their rivals when the return engagement opens at Rogers Centre on Friday night.

The new American League East leaders – the first time they’ve been able to say that this late into a season since 1993 – are on a club-record tying 11-game win streak for the second time in 2015 after beating the Oakland Athletics 4-2 on Thursday afternoon to complete a three-game sweep.

Behind seven innings of two-run ball from Mark Buehrle, a Kevin Pillar RBI single that opened the scoring and a Ryan Goins three-run homer immediately after to put things out of reach, the 64-52 Blue Jays became the first team with multiple 11-game streaks in the same year since the 1954 Cleveland Indians.

They’ll try to make it 12 against the Yankees on Friday when David Price starts against Ivan Nova in the first of three between the rivals. Fresh in the minds of both teams will be what happened last weekend in New York, when Blue Jays pitchers allowed just one run over the three games, all Toronto wins.

That series rapidly ate into what two weeks ago was an eight-game Yankees lead atop the division. The lead will be up for grabs in this one.

Things certainly keep coming up Blue Jays, from Seattle’s Hishasi Iwakuma no-hitting the Baltimore Orioles, an AL East rival, on Wednesday, to back spasms sidelining all-star starter Sonny Gray ahead of his scheduled outing Thursday.

Jesse Chavez moved up a day and though overpowering at times – he struck out nine in six innings of work – was undone by four straight hits in the second inning, capped by Pillar’s opposite field single and Goins’ fourth homer of the year.

The Athletics, on the other hand, couldn’t capitalize when they loaded the bases as Pillar lost a ball in the sun and Jose Bautista couldn’t hang onto a Brett Lawrie liner as he crashed into the right-field wall with none out in the first.

Buehrle recovered to induce a weak comebacker from Danny Valencia that led to a 1-2-3 double play before second baseman Cliff Pennington corralled Josh Phegley’s grounder off Buehrle and barehanded the ball to first to end the frame.

The Athletics also had two on and one out in the top of the second, but Buehrle escaped that, too, and didn’t threaten again until Billy Burns’ RBI triple in the eighth ended the left-hander’s afternoon.

Buehrle exited to a standing ovation from the sell-out crowd of 46,902, and though Butler came home on Mark Canha’s RBI groundout off Aaron Sanchez, he was full value.

Pitching on two extra days rest after not feeling at his best in his last start, he allowed seven hits and two walks with two strikeouts in collecting his 13th win.

Sanchez finished out a clean eighth while Roberto Osuna closed things out in the ninth for his 12th save, the Blue Jays pitching carrying the load and locking things down.