Curtis Granderson gave the best kick-start to the offense that he could give in the bottom of the fifth. His solo shot put the Yankees on the board after falling behind on a J.P. Arencibia solo-homer off of Andy Pettitte in the top of the inning. It was one of only four hits on the night for the Yankees.
Vernon Wells followed Granderson's homerun up with a confusing 7-5 sacrifice forceout. With the bases loaded and one out in the inning, Wells lined a ball to Blue Jays center-fielder Rajai Davis. The umpire said it was trapped by Davis and Eduardo Nunez scored from third, while Chris Stewart got thrown out at third. Replays showed that the ball seemed to have been caught, but the umpires missed a should-have-been triple play. (They missed a lot this game, both ways.)
After another scoreless inning by Pettitte, Nunez took advantage of three walks to Alex Rodriguez, Granderson and Mark Reynolds. He took J.A. Happ's 1-1 pitch back up the middle for a two-run single, scoring A-Rod and Granderson. Reynolds scored a batter later on Chris Stewart's groundout. The Yankees gave it up to their bullpen with a 5-1 lead heading to the seventh.
Shawn Kelley did not have a great outing. He was the first arm to relieve Pettitte, and came in to face the 7-8-9 hitters of Toronto. One walk and three singles later, the Blue Jays got back a run and had the bases loaded with nobody out. Kelly got a shallow fly out from Rajai Davis and forced Edwin Encarnacion into a fielder's choice. Boone Logan was brought in and struck out Adam Lind to limit the damage to just two runs.
Andy Pettitte came through with his second straight quality outing against a division opponent, throwing six innings while giving up just one run on four hits and striking out three. Preston Claiborne, who was added back to the roster with Jayson Nix going to the DL, pitched a short eighth inning. David Robertson came in to give Mariano Rivera the night off and pitched a perfect ninth for his second save of the season.
The Yankees' production came from the bottom of the lineup. The 6-9 hitters went 3-11 with a homer, three walks and four runs, while the 1-5 hitters went 1-14 with five strikeouts and nine runners left on base. With the completed sweep, the Yankees won their fifth straight game overall, and their tenth straight against the Blue Jays. The Bombers are now just 3.5 games out of the wild card and, for those who set higher goals, seven games back of the Red Sox.
More from Pinstriped Bible:
- Yankees Offense 2.0: Is this new offense for real?
- Yankees make like early birds in day games after night
- Alex Rodriguez vs. the Yankees: Implications of finding out which side is telling the truth
- Middle of the Yankees order doing their part during recent hot stretch
- Chris Stewart and Jayson Nix defy the odds