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Power outage: Jays could be minus Bautista against Yankees

Jul 15, 2011 - 2:51 PM (Sports Network) - Toronto Blue Jays slugger and baseball's home run leader Jose Bautista could miss some time after an ankle injury forced him to leave last night's drubbing of the visiting New York Yankees at Rogers Centre.

Bautista is day-to-day with a balky right ankle and may not lace up the spikes in Friday's second installment of a four-game set. The All-Star departed Thursday's 16-7 blowout when he rolled his right ankle sliding into third base during the fourth inning. Bautista fell to the turf in pain and X-rays taken were negative. He is expected to undergo an MRI today and went 1-for-2 with a walk before exiting.

"We'll talk with him first thing in the morning when he wakes up and schedule an MRI at that point," manager John Farrell said on the Jays' website. "That will likely be the case, just to take all precautions with him."

Bautista has 31 homers this season and will surely be missed in the Toronto lineup if he is unable to return soon. He made a great catch in foul territory during the All-Star Game and jammed his right leg into the wall at Arizona's Chase Field. Bautista showed no signs of injury after the sliding grab.

Toronto picked up the slack without its top player, as Eric Thames and Edwin Encarnacion both finished with three hits and three RBI. Aaron Hill, Travis Snider, J.P. Arencibia and Rajai Davis had two RBI apiece for the Blue Jays, winners in four straight and six of nine games. John McDonald replaced Bautista at third base and finished 1-for-2 with a run scored.

"It was an outstanding effort by our lineup top to bottom," Farrell said after a successful opener of a seven-game homestand. "A lot of production up and down the lineup."

Jo-Jo Reyes started for Toronto and recorded the win even though he yielded seven runs and 10 hits in 5 1/3 innings. Reyes was handed an 8-0 cushion in the first inning to work with. The Blue Jays will send Brandon Morrow to the bump tonight and have won each of his last five starts. Morrow is 3-0 with a 2.94 earned run average in that span and did not figure into the decision of last Saturday's 5-4 win at Cleveland in which he held the Indians to three runs over eight innings.

Morrow, a right-hander, is 5-4 with a 4.60 ERA in 15 starts, but owns a 1-4 record in seven starts at Rogers Centre this season. He is 2-1 with a 5.19 ERA in 13 career games (7 starts) and the Yankees.

The Blue Jays will host Seattle for three games after this set.

New York, meanwhile, had a modest two-game winning streak stopped and lost for the fifth time in eight tries since a seven-game run from June 25-July 2.

Yankees starter Bartolo Colon was knocked out of the game after just two- thirds of an inning and surrendered eight runs -- three earned -- and six hits with no strikeouts and two walks. Sergio Mitre was hit pretty hard in relief, allowing four runs, three of which were earned, in the last two innings.

"It's hard to figure what to make of that start because we didn't play that good of a defense behind him," said Yankees manager Joe Girardi. "You don't make too much of one game, but it wasn't a good game on our part."

Andruw Jones belted a pair of home runs and finished with four RBI, while Curtis Granderson had two hits and two RBI for New York, which almost erased a 9-0 deficit and got three hits apiece from Home Run Derby champion Robinson Cano and speedster Brett Gardner. Jones got the nod at designated hitter over Jorge Posada. Posada could be in the lineup tonight against Morrow.

The Yankees opened an eight-game road trip in poor fashion and will also visit Tampa Bay for four games. They hope Freddy Garcia can right the ship when he takes the mound Friday and he's 7-6 with a 3.13 ERA in 16 games (15 starts) this season. The big right-hander has won five of his last seven decisions, but did not figure into the outcome of a 3-2 road loss against the Mets back on July 3. His most recent start was rained out last Friday versus the Rays.

Garcia tossed seven innings of one-run ball against the Mets and is 2-2 in seven games, six of which have been starts, on the road. He defeated Toronto in a 7-3 affair on May 25 in the Bronx, as he allowed three runs in 6 1/3 innings to improve to 7-6 in 16 career starts against the Blue Jays.

New York, which is 1 1/2 games behind Boston for the AL East lead, has beaten the Jays five times in nine tries this season, going 4-2 in games played at Yankee Stadium. Toronto is 10 1/2 games behind the Red Sox in the division.