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Upton's ninth-inning blast helps Devil Rays defeat Blue Jays

Sep 9, 2007 - 3:43 AM ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (Ticker) -- B.J. Upton spoiled a brilliant effort by A.J. Burnett.

Upton hit the second of two ninth-inning homers, a walk-off, two-run blast off Jeremy Accardo to give the Tampa Bay Devil Rays a 5-4 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday.

Delmon Young also hit a two-run homer off Accardo in the ninth for Tampa Bay, which has won 11 of its last 15 games.

The homers wiped out a gem by Burnett, who allowed a run, three hits and a walk in eight innings for Toronto, which is just about out of the American League wild card race with this defeat.

The Blue Jays, who entered Saturday's game having won seven of 10, fell 7-1/2 games behind the New York Yankees for the wild card lead with just 21 games remaining. New York crushed the Kansas City Royals, 11-5, Saturday night.

Trailing, 4-1, in the ninth, Carl Crawford reached on an error before scoring two batters later on the 12th blast of the season by Young, who drilled Accardo's first pitch over the right field wall to make it 4-3.

"I was looking for a pitch that I could hit and took a hard swing at it," Young said.

Two batters later Jonny Gomes walked before Upton, pinch hitting for Greg Norton, belted the first pitch he saw from Accardo (4-4) into the seats in right to win the game.

"(Devil Rays manager Joe Maddon) told me if a pinch-hit situation came up, I might bat," Upton said. "I just wanted to hit something hard. It was tough to tell (if it was a home run). I hit it kind of low."

It was the fifth blown save for the Toronto closer, who was going for his 28th save.

"I didn't do my job," Accardo said. "Young and Upton beat me. Both pitches were down in the zone, but they got them."

Al Reyes (2-2) struck out two of the three batters he faced in the top of the ninth to earn the victory.

The 30-year-old Burnett allowed a homer to Dioner Navarro with one out in the second inning to give Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead. He then retired the next 11 batters before allowing a one-out single to Carl Crawford in the sixth.

"A.J. was rolling," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. "He was throwing more early, then settled in. In the third he started pitching."

A first-inning single by Young was the only other hit Burnett gave up.

"Toronto's pitching is tough, they have the best one through 12 pitching staff in the AL," Maddon said.

The Blue Jays took a 2-1 lead in the sixth when Alex Rios blasted a 1-2 pitch off Tampa Bay starter Jason Hammel with a runner on to give the Blue Jays a 2-1 lead.

"It was a pretty bad miss with the pitch to Rios," Hammel said.

It was the 23rd homer for Rios but just his sixth since the All-Star break.

Hammel allowed two runs, five hits and two walks in six innings.

Vernon Wells added an RBI single and Matt Stairs a sacrifice fly off reliever Grant Balfour in the seventh to make it 4-1.