MLB

Streak snapped as Yanks fall to Blue Jays

The Yankees have gotten by with some shoddy infield defense this season, but it came back to haunt them on Saturday.

A pair of bungled plays by Brian McCann led to the go-ahead run in the seventh as the Yankees lost to the Blue Jays, 6-4, in The Bronx to snap their four-game winning streak.

McCann, filling in for the injured Mark Teixeira, has been serviceable at his new position, but froze on one play and ventured too far to his right on another.

Though neither was scored an error, they gave the Blue Jays two extra outs in the inning.

And Toronto, which had lost 17 straight at Yankee Stadium, capitalized.

“It was the first time I’ve seen it from that angle,” McCann said of Dioner Navarro’s grounder to first with Melky Cabrera on third and Jose Bautista on second. “I wish I could have slowed the game down a little bit.”

Instead, McCann was indecisive when he noticed Bautista heading toward third and Cabrera lingering off third.

Toronto Blue Jay’ Dan Johnson, right, hits a three-run home run as New York Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli, left, looks on.AP

McCann hesitated and didn’t get the sure out at first. By the time he threw to second to try to get Bautista, it was too late and the bases were loaded with no outs.

Shawn Kelley (2-2) responded by fanning Steve Tolleson before Matt Thornton got Dan Johnson to hit a jam shot toward second, but McCann erred again and bumped into Brian Roberts — and didn’t cover first. The ball took a funny hop and went for an infield hit and scored Cabrera to give the Blue Jays a 3-2 lead.

“It’s one of those funky plays,” said Roberts, who insisted he couldn’t get to the ball on the fly. “The ball goes up and at first you’re hoping somebody’s going to catch it in the air [or it’s] an infield fly or something. … Maybe it’s a play I’m supposed to make, I don’t know. It didn’t happen.”

When Thornton realized what was happening, he had an immediate reaction.

“Oh [shoot],” Thornton said. “If I broke immediately, I might have been right in the mix of it, too. I might have run into [Roberts] and [McCann] and we would have all been laying there and three runs would have scored.”

That’s about the only thing that didn’t go wrong in the inning.

Yankees second baseman Brian Roberts is unable to catch a RBI-single in the infield by Toronto Blue Jays’ Dan Johnson as Yankees pitcher Matt Thornton, left, looks on.AP

“It’s tough for him,” Roberts said of McCann. “He’s never played first. Those plays, [instinctively], he doesn’t have a whole lot of time over there and unfortunately that’s where we are right now.”

Until Teixeira returns, that’s where they will remain.

“With what we’ve got going on with [Teixeira], we really don’t have a first baseman,” manager Joe Girardi said. “[McCann] has done a pretty good job.”

McCann’s two-run homer off Drew Hutchison (9-7), who the Yankees had beaten in three previous starts this season — surrendering 14 earned runs in 13 ²/₃ innings (9.22 ERA) — gave the Yankees and Chris Capuano a 2-0 lead in the fourth.

But Capuano, in his first start of the season after being acquired from Colorado on Thursday, gave both runs back in the fifth.

The Yankees, trailing by a run, threatened in the eighth, as Aaron Loup issued consecutive walks to Roberts and Francisco Cervelli, but Brett Gardner struck out looking.

Determined to give David Robertson and Dellin Betances a day off, Girardi was forced to go to Chase Whitley and Jeff Francis in the ninth, and Johnson’s three-run homer off Francis made it 6-2.

That proved costly when Carlos Beltran hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the inning.

The rally stalled after that.

“They kind of got the good bounces today and we didn’t,” Roberts said.