Photo

The Yankees’ Dustin Ackley on a ground ball from the Blue Jays’ Ryan Goins. Ackley, who has not played second base regularly since 2013, made his third consecutive start at the position.Credit Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press

TORONTO — When the Toronto Blue Jays acquired David Price just before the nonwaiver trading deadline at the end of July, it raised eyebrows not just around baseball but in the Yankees’ clubhouse.

Though the Yankees owned a seemingly commanding lead at the time, the Blue Jays, with their potent offense complemented by the most prized pitcher on the market, looked like a serious proposition.

In the coming months, the Yankees have learned just how serious.

Price dominated the Yankees once again on Monday night, allowing two hits over seven shutout innings as the Blue Jays steadied their hold on first place in the American League East with a 4-2 victory.

The win extended their lead to three and a half games over the Yankees and continued two trends: Price shackling the Yankees and the Blue Jays finding ways to beat them.

Since the trade, Price has beaten the Yankees three times and once took a no-decision in which he allowed three runs in seven and one-third innings. It was the Blue Jays’ 12th win in 17 games against the Yankees.

For the Yankees to harbor anything but a remote hope of winning the division and avoiding a wild-card playoff, winning the final two games of the series is essential.

“They’re as important as any games we’ve played all year when you’re talking about trying to win the division,” Manager Joe Girardi said.

The Yankees, who rolled into town in the wee hours of Monday morning, may have arrived at the ballpark somewhat bleary-eyed, but they were buoyed from having sliced two games off Toronto’s lead in the last two days.

After the Blue Jays struck for three runs in the first, seizing upon pitcher Adam Warren’s early nerves and jittery fielding by shortstop Didi Gregorius and right fielder Carlos Beltran, the Yankees had but two opportunities.

The Yankees loaded the bases in the third against Price and in the eighth against Brett Cecil with the heart of the order at the plate, but their two veteran sluggers, Alex Rodriguez and Brian McCann, could not deliver either time.

“Look, Price was good tonight,” Rodriguez said. “When you face an elite pitcher, you usually get one crack at him, and we had it and came up short tonight.”

Once Price left, the Yankees mounted a rare and final threat, pushing across their a run and bringing Brett Gardner to the plate as the tying run. But Cecil struck out Gardner, Rodriguez and McCann — the final one drawing an immense roar from the sellout crowd at Rogers Centre.

Greg Bird hit a two-out solo homer in the ninth but did nothing else.

Jacoby Ellsbury led off the game by ripping a pitch right back at Price, who flicked up his glove and caught it. A moment later, Rodriguez crumpled in agony after fouling a ball off his front foot. Not long after that, the jitters of Warren and his fielders put the Yankees in an early 3-0 hole.

Once Warren settled down, the Yankees appeared poised to make their entry back into the game after second baseman Cliff Pennington threw away Dustin Ackley’s one-out ground ball. Ellsbury followed by lining a single to left-center, and Gardner drew a full-count walk to load the bases.

The capacity crowd crew edgy as Rodriguez came to the plate.

With the count at 3-2, Rodriguez lifted a soft fly down the right-field line that landed inches foul. Had it landed fair, two runs would have assuredly scored.

Price made the most of his reprieve, striking out Rodriguez on the next pitch.

Rodriguez showed a flash of anger, jerking the bat back and grabbing it by the barrel.

“I had some good pitches to hit, fouled them off, and when you get your pitch you can’t foul them off that many times,” he said.

Price then retired McCann on a fly ball to center, and the Yankees never sniffed another opportunity. Price retired the order in the fourth, the fifth, the sixth and the seventh.

Asked what he had been trying to do when Rodriguez came to the plate, Price said: “Get outs. Hopefully a double play.”

When he struck out Bird to end the seventh, he was saluted with a standing ovation as he walked off the field.

While the Blue Jays turned to Price, the Yankees in this series will have to lean on two pitchers they dropped from the rotation — Warren and Ivan Nova — sandwiched around one who made his major-league debut last month, Luis Severino.

When Nathan Eovaldi was sidelined with inflammation in his right elbow (his expected return to throwing was delayed Monday for at least a week, putting his return this season in jeopardy), Warren was recalled from the bullpen.

His second start since then did not begin well.

Ben Revere laced a single, Josh Donaldson was hit by a pitch, and Jose Bautista followed with a base hit to put the Blue Jays ahead, 1-0. Warren then bounced a curveball, which allowed Donaldson and Bautista to move up. Donaldson scored when Gregorius bobbled Edwin Encarnacion’s grounder.

Justin Smoak then laced a double to right that floated over the head of Beltran in right field, and suddenly it was 3-0.

“I was trying to make the best pitch in the world instead of just trusting my stuff,” Warren said. “The better teams make you think you have to throw a better pitch than you do. That’s kind of the trap we fall into sometimes is overthinking it.”