The loss allowed Evan Longoria and the Rays, 6-4 winners over the Twins, to take over first in the AL East. (AP)
The Yankees should consider holding a moment of silence for Alex Rodriguez’s bat before today’s game.
The scuffling slugger went hitless and homerless again last night in a 8-2 loss to the Blue Jays, the Bombers’ third straight loss and fourth in five games. The loss, along with the Rays’ defeat of the Twins, drops the Yankees into second place for the first time since June 12.
The Yankees managed just two hits off Jays starter Ricky Romero, who went the distance, and the Toronto offense belted four home runs off a trio of Yankees pitchers in front of 46,480 fans at Yankee Stadium.
Rodriguez went 0-for-3 last night, remaining stuck on 599 career home runs. The 35-year-old slugger looks lost at the plate, stuck in an 0-for-17 skid. It has been 12 games and 51 plate appearances since Rodriguez hit his last homer. He is batting .196 since hitting his last home run.
“Right now he’s in a little funk and not getting any hits,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “The biggest thing about milestones is sometimes they can get in the way a little bit. You hope that guys don’t think about them too much but this is a pretty big milestone and we’ve got to get through it.”
The only positive step for Rodriguez was a well-hit fly ball out to center field in the seventh. That’s progress because lately all he’s done is groundout or strike out. He did not stick around after the game to speak to reporters.
Rodriguez was not alone in his futility last night. The Yankees could barely touch Romero, just a month after roughing him up at Yankee Stadium when they chased him in the third inning.
The three-game losing streak matches the longest of the season for the Yankees, the fourth time they’ve lost that many in a row and first time since June 16-18.
“No one said it was going to be easy,” Girardi said. “As I said, there were going to be bumps in the road for every team in this division. We’re all going to go through it. You try to keep it as short as possible and try to turn it around tomorrow and have a good feeling going into the day off.”
Mark Teixeira hit his 23rd home run of the season in the first inning, a two-run blast that gave the Yankees a lead. Romero retired the next 11 batters before giving up an infield single to Marcus Thames in the fifth inning. He did not allow another base runner after that. He sat down 26 of the Yankees’ final 27 batters.
“It’s one of those nights,” Nick Swisher said. “I think we lined out nine or 10 times.”
Yankees starter Dustin Moseley pitched OK in his second start in place of the injured Andy Pettitte. He went 71⁄3 innings, giving up five runs on nine hits with two strikeouts and a walk.
The Jays cut the lead to 2-1 in the second inning, then took the lead in the fourth. Aaron Hill reached when Moseley hit him with a pitch. John Buck then drilled a double into the left-field corner. Austin Kearns hit Derek Jeter for the relay, but Jeter double-clutched the ball and failed to get Hill out at home, tying the game.
The next batter, Travis Snider, homered into the Yankees bullpen to give the Jays a 4-2 lead.
“I thought it was a fly ball and it just kept going and kept going,” Moseley said. “That just kind of crushed that inning. It kind of took the breath out of us a little bit.”
brian.costello@nypost.com