Mayza tearful after suffering left elbow injury

TORONTO -- Blue Jays reliever Tim Mayza left Friday night's 6-5 walk-off win over the Yankees in the 10th inning after suffering a left elbow injury and is undergoing further evaluation by the team's medical staff with an MRI, the club announced.

After releasing a 3-2 pitch to Didi Gregorius , the ball sailed behind Gregorius and Mayza fell to the ground in obvious pain. The 27-year-old was visibly emotional as his teammates and Blue Jays staff surrounded him on the mound before he left with a trainer, not moving his arm.

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"I love Tim Mayza," said manager Charlie Montoyo following the game. "He pitches every day. He's done a great job and he's part of our future. He felt it and it was emotional. Everybody was, because everybody loves Timmy Mayza."

Mayza entered play on Friday with the fifth-most appearances in the American League at 67, and he was making his 68th when the injury happened. Now in his third season with the Blue Jays after debuting in 2017, Mayza owns a 4.91 ERA with 55 strikeouts over 51 1/3 innings.

Bo Bichette was the walk-off hero in the bottom of the 12th inning with a solo home run to left field. Following a debut that's seen Bichette add a new record seemingly every game, this was the 21-year-old's first career walk-off home run and made him the youngest Blue Jay to ever hit a walk-off home run.

Bichette isn't lacking confidence, either, and he made good on a prediction that Montoyo overheard in the dugout just before Bichette stepped to the plate in the 12th.

"This kid's going to be a star," Montoyo said. "He's confident. Before the at-bat, he told a guy on the bench, 'If they leave the left-hander on the mound and he throws me a slider, I'm going to take him deep.'"

Anthony Kay pitched 4 1/3 innings before turning things over to an eight-man bullpen effort, including Mayza. Kay allowed five runs on seven hits, but all of that damage came in the fifth inning after he looked much sharper through the first four frames.

The Blue Jays had a noticeably poor inning defensively as those five runs crossed, which follows a night filled with outfield blunders on Thursday, so it can't all be put on Kay. There's plenty for the 24-year-old lefty to take from those clean innings early on and carry forward, especially considering that he did it against one of baseball's best teams.

"I feel like I executed a lot of my pitches, and for the most part, I kept it off the barrel," Kay said. "Most of the damage that was done was just them finding holes and nothing too serious."

It's still a bittersweet win, though, given the loss of Mayza. Yankees' reliever Adam Ottavino, who underwent Tommy John surgery in 2015 and faced a long recovery after, was watching the game in the clubhouse after pitching and knew that it looked serious, adding that he hopes that Mayza avoided a major injury.

Kay, who is new to the organization after coming over from the Mets at the Trade Deadline, described the mood in the dugout as he watched one of his new teammates leave the field.

"It sucks. You don't even want to see that happen to anyone on the other team," Kay said. "It's terrible to see that to happen to anyone. Everyone was pretty much sick to their stomach. It's just not something you ever want to see."