TORONTO — The Blue Jays bullpen-gamed their way to a clinching Game 4 win over the Yankees in the ALDS last October. 

Given the current state of the Yankees lineup, doing so again Saturday was not quite as impressive a feat. 

But on most days lately, teams can throw whoever or whatever they want at Aaron Boone’s club and look dominant doing so, which was the case Saturday as the Blue Jays used a parade of seven relievers to shut down the Yankees and hand them a 4-1 loss on a sun-splashed afternoon at Rogers Centre. 

The Yankees (68-55), who mustered just four hits, have now scored only two runs over their past 27 innings, resulting in three losses to put them seven games back of the Rays entering their Saturday night game. Continuing to waste quality starting pitching, the Yankees scored two runs or fewer for the 10th time in their past 15 games. 

The resurgent Blue Jays (61-64), who came into the day just one game back of the final AL wild card, broke a 1-1 tie in the seventh inning off Brent Headrick, then piled on two insurance runs in the eighth off Tim Hill to put the game on ice. 

Headrick, who had been unscored upon in 52 of his 61 appearances this season, picked a bad time for giving up a rare run. He entered in the sixth inning and stranded a pair of inherited runners but came back out for the seventh, when pinch hitter Ernie Clement led off with a single. No. 9 hitter Charles McAdoo, starting at first base for the injured Vladimir Guerrero Jr., came up next and drilled a double off the top of the left field wall to score Clement, putting the Blue Jays ahead 2-1. 

They threatened for more and eventually loaded the bases, but Paul Blackburn came in to secure the final two outs to keep it a one-run game. 

Cam Schlittler was not his crispest version Saturday as he walked three batters, but he limited the Blue Jays to just one run across 5 1/3 innings while striking out seven. Besides all that is at stake for both teams at this point in the season, the side show to this weekend was the AL Cy Young race between Schlittler and Blue Jays ace Dylan Cease, who will start Sunday’s series finale. Schlittler finished Saturday with a 2.19 ERA through 26 starts while Cease enters his 23rd start Sunday with a 2.40 ERA. 

The Yankees jumped on top in the second inning thanks to the two youngest hitters in their lineup. Facing Blue Jays lefty Ricky Tiedemann, who was making his MLB debut in the bullpen game, Spencer Jones led off with a single and later stole second base. That put him in position to score on George Lombard Jr.’s single to left field for the 1-0 lead. 

But the Blue Jays tied it back up the third inning, taking advantage of a lack of sharpness from Schlittler. With one out, the right-hander walked rookie Brett Bateman on a full count and then allowed back-to-back singles to Nathan Lukes and Alejandro Kirk, which tied the game at one. 

Schlittler retired the next two batters to avoid further damage, but Kirk continued to hurt the Yankees. After driving in a pair of runs in Friday’s 3-1 win over the Yankees, he entered Saturday with a lifetime .827 OPS against them with 31 RBIs in 61 games. 

From there, Schlittler retired nine straight into the sixth inning, when he walked Jesús Sánchez and then gave up a bloop single to Kazuma Okamoto, which ended his day at 97 pitches. 

But Headrick came in to clean up his mess, as the lefty struck out Andrés Giménez and then got Brandon Valenzuela to ground out. Headrick has now stranded 35 of the 39 runners he has inherited this season. 

After Lombard’s RBI single in the second inning, the Yankees did not have another hit until Luis García Jr. led off the seventh inning with a single. But he was quickly erased, caught stealing second base on a 2-2 pitch to Jones, who struck out on the next pitch.