YES Network and Rogers Sportsnet both saw record '15 audiences for the Blue Jays-Yankees series this past weekend. YES drew a 4.38 local rating in N.Y. for Friday night's series-opener, marking the RSN's best Yankees game audience this season to date. Saturday's matchup also marked YES' best weekend afternoon game audience in over a year (3.07 rating). YES has had its five top game audiences of the season since July 29. Meanwhile, Sportsnet for the finale of the Jays' three-game sweep drew its best game audience for any game this season and the second-best Blue Jays audience in network history. The three-game set also marked Sportsnet's best Blue Jays series ever, surpassing the recent series against the Twins from Aug. 3-6 (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor). In N.Y., Bob Raissman writes the analysis delivered by YES Network announcers Michael Kay and David Cone during the series at times came "in frustrated tones, mirroring what many viewers must have been feeling." The Yankees were shut out Sunday for the second straight game, and Kay said it was "hard to explain" why Blue Jays P Marco Estrada was so dominant. He said, "You can explain David Price. ... But to get shut down so completely by Marco Estrada, that's beyond comprehensible." Raissman notes the YES cameras "also captured frustration on Sunday," showing CF Brett Gardner "slamming down his helmet with two hands after grounding out with a runner on second to end the third" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 8/11).
BLUE JAY WAY: The Blue Jays enter play tonight just 1.5 games behind the Yankees in the AL East after the weekend sweep, and the Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan said, “Here's a team that once upon a time drew 4 million (fans) 20-some years ago and which stopped acting as a big-market team for years." They now are "once again acting as a big-market team, and that is the key to what’s going on here right now." Ryan: "They’re putting on their big boy pants and spending the money” (“Around The Horn,” ESPN, 8/10).
