From the official site:

The Yankees struck first when, in the bottom of the second, Jorge singled in A-Rod to go up 1-0. Blue Jays starter Shaun Marcum would be removed after 3 innings after having some issues with his right knee. Our starter, Phil Hughes, went 5 innings, throwing 99 pitches and allowing 3 earned runs on 7 hits, 1 walk and 3 strikeouts.

He gave up all 3 runs in one inning - the 4th - where he faced 7 batters allowing RBIs on a ground rule double and a single. The Yankees would come back and score 1 in the 5th (Matsui RBI triple, scoring Abreu) and 4 in the 6th (A-Rod RBI double, scoring Jeter and Minky and Matsui RBI single, scoring A-Rod and Abreu). The lead would go back and forth in this one, though.

The Blue Jays grabbed it back in the 7th with a 5 spot. Then the Yankees pulled it back by scoring 3 runs in the bottom half. Melky had a 2 RBI single, scoring Cano and Sardinha and A-Rod then singled in Melky.

The Blue Jays weren't done, though. They went ahead by 2 with 3 RBI singles in the top of the 8th, making the score 11-9. Neither were the Yankees. With 2 outs in the 8th, Melky singled in both Posada and Cano to tie it up at 11. Both teams went down in the 9th without scoring, leading us into extra innings for the second straight night.

The Yankees got a scare in the top of the 10th when, with Jeff Karstens on the hill, Aaron Hill doubled with 2 outs and Matt Stairs went for home. He was gunned down and the Blue Jays rally was over.

In the bottom of the 10th, Posada led off with a ground rule double. Damon pinch ran for Posada and the Blue Jays elected to give Giambi a free pass. Cano then flied to left to advance the runners to 2nd and 3rd. Wilson Betemit was due up and a sac fly would get us the win. But, he struck out for the 2nd out. And then, Melky Cabrera stepped to the plate and delivered a 2 out, walk off single to win the game.

Huge night for the Melkster. He was 3 for 7 with 1 run and 5 RBIs, including 3 2 out RBIs - the final 3 RBIs of the game. In fact, the Yankees only had 3 RBIs that were not driven in with 2 outs. A-Rod had 3 2 out RBIs, as did Matsui.

Speaking of Matsui, he's definitely out of his slump. He went 3 for 6 tonight with a triple and 3 RBIs. A-Rod was huge today, too, going 4 for 5 with 2 doubles, 2 runs, 3 RBIs and 1 walk. He now has 146 RBIs.

Here's how the other offensive starters did: Jeter was 2 for 6 with 1 run, Abreu was 0 for 3 with 2 runs and 3 walks, Posada was 3 for 5 with 1 run, 1 RBI and 1 walk, Giambi was 0 for 5 with 1 walk, Cano was 0 for 3 with 2 runs and 2 walks and Minky was 2 for 2 with 1 run and 1 walk. Speaking of Mientkiewicz, he's hitting .450 since being taken off the DL.

In all, our bullpen had to throw 5 innings of baseball and allowed 8 ER. It took 9 pitchers to do this, unfortunately. Here are the lines:

Villone: 0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K
Ohlendorf: 0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K
Veras: 0.2 IP, 2 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 2 K
Ramirez: 0.1 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 0 K
Farnsworth: 0.1 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 0 K
Britton: 0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K
Igawa: 0.1 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K
Rivera: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K
Karstens: 1 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K

Whew. Karstens got the win - his first win in the Majors since September 19 - of last year. The Yankees have played almost 24 innings of baseball in the last 2 days. If there is anything good to mention, it's the fact that the Blue Jays are also getting worn out and we have 2 more games with them, rather than having to go and play a team that is a bit fresher.

In all, 25 pitchers have appeared in these 2 games - with 7 pitchers throwing in both of them. The Blue Jays have ran out Roy Halladay, Scott Downs, Casey Janssen, Jeremy Accardo, Brian Wolfe, Joe Kennedy, Jason Frasor, Shaun Marcum, Brian Tallet, Brandon League and Josh Towers. That's 11 pitchers with Kennedy, Frasor and Downs pitching in both games.

And for the Yankees, you have Chien Ming-Wang, Edwar Ramirez, Jose Veras, Ron Villone, Mariano Rivera, Joba Chamberlain, Luis Vizcaino, Brian Bruney, Phil Hughes, Ross Ohlendorf, Kyle Farnsworth, Chris Britton, Kei Igawa and Jeff Karstens. 14 in all. Villone, Veras, Ramirez and Rivera all pitched in both.

It'd be nice to have a night game tomorrow after this one, right? Nope, day game! 1:05 PM ET. And we've got Moose going, so it's not too likely that the bullpen is going to get a lot of rest (even with his last couple starts in mind). Dustin McGowan (11-9, 3.84 ERA) will pitch for the Blue Jays.

11 innings, 18 pitchers and 35 hits and 13 walks leading to 23 runs. Quite the roller coaster of a win, huh? If you don't believe me, check out the WPA graph from fangraphs.com:

Not including today, here's Melky over the last 34 games: .213/.279/.252/.531. Over the last 15 games? Even worse - .150/.212/.183/.395 in 60 ABs. You gotta sit him down.

All of Yankee-dom knows that when Melky is cold, he's ICE COLD. He's just not helping the team right now - play Damon in CF (.260/.311/.439/.750 over the same time period) and Matsui/Duncan in left and give Melky a couple extra days with Kevin Long.

Update: Naturally, he makes me look silly by going 3 hits and 5 RBI in the 7th, 8th and 10th today. Still, he's been putrid outside of today so let's hope today is the start of one of his hot streaks because when he's going good, he's easily one of the most fun players on this team to watch.

Though the asker wasn't what you would call polite, respectful or... even decent, Tom Verducci answered a question which basically came down to: how can you say Torre doesn't overuse his bullpen? Here's the answer:


Via PsiFighter37.

Both teams were starting to run out of first run pitchers and it cost the Yankees in the 14th. Having already used Rivera, Chamberlain and Vizcaino, Torre turned to Brian Bruney in the 14th. He surrendered a go ahead homer to Gregg Zaun which eventually proved to be the difference.

The game started out as it was billed with Roy Halladay and Chien-Ming Wang posting goose eggs through six innings. Wang gave up singles to Hill and Adams in the 7th. Zaun was robbed of a double by A-Rod but his sharp grounder down the third base line scored the first run of the game. Adam Lind followed with a single to right which Abreu fielded cleanly and made a perfect throw to the plate but Posada couldn't hold it and the Blue Jays had a 2-0 lead.

Edwar Ramirez put kerosene on the fire as he gave up a two run homer to Alex Rios to extend the lead to 4-0. Halladay was dealing all night until the ninth when the Bombers erupted.

Johnny Damon led off and bounced a double down the third base line. Jeter grounded out sharply to short. Abreu blooped a single to center as Damon took third on the play. A-Rod lined a sharp single up the middle for the first run. Matsui tried to pull an outside pitch and grounded to the right side for the second out with the runners moving to second and third. Posada followed with a grounder up the middle which Hill fielded but bounced his throw to first. Overbay bobbled the throw and Posada just crossed the bag before he gained control of the ball. The second run scored to make it 4-2.

Cano grounded a ball in the hole between first and second which Hill probably should have fielded but the ball skipped under his glove and the score was now 4-3. Giambi pinch hit for Mientkiewicz and got a single to left center to tie the game. The Yankees could not add any more runs and the game stayed deadlocked at four until Zaun's homer won it in the 14th for Toronto.

The series resumes this afternoon as the Pinstripers try to reduce their magic number of five to clinch the AL Wild Card.

Sir Ian was going to pitch on Saturday, but he strained a muscle in his back. As Clemens was slotted for Sunday, he just moved up a day. Now, that's not happening, either.


Doesn't seem to be anything serious, but they will hold him back and Phil will start today, instead. Mussina is set to go Sunday and then they are hoping that Clemens can come around and pitch Monday.

Ed Price reports that Ian Kennedy has been scratched from his next start (Saturday), which means that everyone will move up a day. Clemens will now pitch tomorrow, followed by Hughes and Moose.

Via Joseph.

Well, here we go. This is obviously an important series for the Yanks but who are we kidding, all three of the remaining ones are.

Still, with all the euphoria of Boston's division lead collapsing (but not gone away completely. so the job's not done ), this would be the typical place for a Yankee let down. Let's be serious - it's not like this team hasn't clawed back earlier this year only to fade away when they should have been capitalizing on Red Sox losses. They made pushes in both June and in mid-August before losing some pretty putrid games.

Still, I'm not trying to be a downer so let's just move on to this series. Here are the pitching match-ups:

Friday: RHP Roy Halladay (15-7, 3.82) vs. RHP Chien-Ming Wang (18-7, 3.82), 7:05

Saturday: RHP Shaun Marcum (12-6, 4.15) vs. RHP Ian Kennedy (1-0, 1.89), 1:05

Sunday: RHP Dustin McGowan (11-9, 3.84) vs. RHP Roger Clemens (6-6, 4.18), 1:05

Monday: RHP A.J. Burnett (8-7, 3.42) vs. RHP Phil Hughes (4-3, 4.75), 1:05

If you look at those match-ups and think to yourself, wow, Toronto has a pretty nice set of starters (not including 22 year old Jesse Litsch who has a line of 6-9 with a 4.16 ERA), you aren't kidding. Since the all-star break, they have been far and away the best staff (including bullpen) in the majors. Since the ASB, they have only gone 34-31 but take a look at the rest of the stats: 3.41 ERA with 6 CG, a .243 BAA and a K/BB ratio of 2.44:1 in 580.1 IP. That's impressive - even more so when you look at where the Yankees are (17th, 45-21, 4.52 ERA, 0 CG and a .276 BAA).

I started to dig a little deeper into those pitching numbers and if you go back farther past the ASB, Toronto actually looks even better. Since May 10th (when they were swept out at home by Boston) and their team ERA stood at 4.96, they have been very good, especially for a team in the AL East. In the 118 games since then, Toronto has put up a 3.65 ERA as a team. For perspective, there are three pitchers on the entire Yankees roster with an ERA under that: Mo, Joba and IPK. The peripherals are good too. A BAA line of .244/.306/.375/.681 with a 2.41 K:BB ratio in over 1084 IP.

So with that kind of staff, why has the team only gone 64-54 (.542) in that time period? Well, their hitting is not nearly as good as the pitching. Over the same 118 games, Toronto has managed to put up a line of .257/.325/.415/.740 (generally equivalent to what Jose Molina has put up for the Yankees). If you look at their roster, you have three guys with OPS+ of 100 or over, Troy Glaus, Alexis Rios, Frank Thomas and Matt Stairs. With Glaus (and Wells and for all intents and purposes Overbay) now out for the year, Toronto's line-up is fairly weak and can certainly be pitched to. If the Yankees pitchers are on their game, they should be able to hold the Jays' offense to a few runs each game and then, it'll be up to the Yankees hitters to do their jobs.

Helping the cause is that 3 out of the 4 Jays' starters pitch worse on the road than at home. Halladay (3.12 ERA at home vs a 4.59 ERA on the road), Dustin McGowan (3.18 vs.4.50) and A.J. Burnett (2.62 vs. 4.24) loved their Canadian digs while Shawn Marcum was the only exception (5.66 vs. 2.71).

So there's what the Yankees are up against. It's a formidable pitching staff with weak hitters..against a formidable hitting team and two rookie starters. It should be an interesting series - let's go Yankees (and Scott Kazmir)!

From the official site: