Yankees Win with Blue Print

The Yankees should archive last night's game with the Blue Jays and remind themselves every day that this is how you win a baseball game. The Yankees beat the Blue Jays 5-1 with solid pitching, timely hitting, and good fielding. The victory also allowed them to gain a game on the wildcard-leading Red Sox.

Andy Pettitte was on top of his game, limiting the Blue Jays to one run and five hits over seven innings of work. He didn't walk a batter and struck out four in an 83-pitch effort. He got an immediate boost from the offense which got to rookie left-hander David Purcey in the first inning.

Consecutive singles by Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, and Bobby Abreu loaded the bases with no one out. Purcey retired Alex Rodriguez on a routine fly to right, but Jason Giambi's fly to deep center brought home Damon, and Xavier Nady singled to right to plate Jeter. Purcey finally got Hideki Matsui to fly out to escape further trouble.

Pettitte allowed only two base runners through the first five innings and the Yankees tacked on runs in the fifth. Robinson Cano drew a one-out walk and moved to third on Jose Molina's single. Damon's grounder forced Molina at second, but Cano scored on the play for a 3-0 lead. Jeter than went deep for the first time since August 7 to push the edge to 5-0. It was Jeter's 203rd career home run, tying him with Roger Maris for 11th place on the all-time Yankees' home run list.

The Blue Jays finally reached Pettitte for a run in the sixth when David Eckstein, Marco Scutaro, and Alex Rios stroked consecutive one-out singles. But Pettitte shut things down there, striking out Vernon Wells and retiring Adam Lind on a fly-out to left field. Pettitte breezed through the seventh and Brian Bruney retired all six men he faced over the final two innings to seal the victory.


News and Notes

The win was the 13th of the season for Andy Pettitte and career win number 214. It was his 178th as a Yankee.

Whatever the reason, Derek Jeter has finally gotten hot. His three hits last night, which left him two hits shy of 2,500 for his career, gave him 16 hits in his last 28 at-bats (.571). For the month of August, he's batting .400 with a .943 OPS. It's also the only month that he's stolen more than one base.

Hideki Matsui's double in the eighth inning was his first hit since returning from the DL.