Yankees Hit Their Way to Finale Win

The Toronto Blue Jays silenced the Yankees bats through the first two games of the their three games series and had done so for much of Sunday's finale. Then the Yankees finally got some clutch hits. Well, it started out just by being hit, period.

Francisco Cervelli and Brett Gardner each took one for the team as the Yankees rallied for four runs in the eighth inning and a 4-2 win.

Javier Vazquez kept his team in the game with another stellar performance. He actually had a no-hitter going for 5.2 innings, but Vernon Wells broke it up with a 2-run home run that also snapped a scoreless tie.

Brandon Morrow had limited the Yankees to four hits and walk through seven innings, but hit Cervelli in the left shoulder to start the eighth. Cisto Gaston brought in left-hander Scott Downs to face Brett Gardner, but the southpaw drilled the Yankees left fielder on the wrist.

The land of Twitter thought for sure Joe Girardi would bunt as he often does in the situation the Yankees found themselves in. But the Yankees skip let Derek Jeter swing away and it paid off when the Captain doubled down the right field line to cut the Yankees deficit to one.

It was long day for Nick Swisher at the plate, in part due to the appropriately named home plate ump Bruce Dreckman. Swisher had been called out on strikes earlier in the game on a pitch out of the zone and was beside himself when Dreckman said he didn't check his swing for a third strike and the first out in the eighth. Girardi quickly came out to protect his player and got into with Dreckman whose strike zone well exceeded both sides of the tangible part of home plate. Needless to say Girardi got got tossed with Tony Pena taking over.

Even though the numbers have proven otherwise, Gaston elected to walk the struggling Mark Teixeira to face Alex Rodriguez with a force set up at any base. Those situations had resulted in five hits, three grand slams and 18 RBI in seven at-bats.

Jayson Frasor helped the Yankees out further, bouncing a pitch in front of Jose Molina. The ricochet got far enough away from the former Yankee catcher to allow Gardner to slide home head first with the tying run. A-Rod looked at a called third strike (one of the few good calls by Dreckman), but Robinson Cano delivered a 2-run single to the left for a 4-2 lead.

The Blue Jays got a run back off of Joba Chamberlain, but Damaso Marte retired Adam Lind with the tying run on base in the 8th and Mariano Rivera pitched a 1-2-3 9th to end the Yankees two game losing streak.