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Zaun, Blue Jays spoil Yankees' comeback attempt

Sep 22, 2007 - 5:14 AM BRONX, New York (Ticker) -- The New York Yankees overcame Roy Halladay in the ninth inning. But Brian Bruney could not get past Gregg Zaun in the 14th.

Zaun belted a go-ahead homer in the top of the 14th inning as the Toronto Blue Jays pulled out a wild 5-4 victory over the Yankees in the opener of a four-game set at Yankee Stadium on Friday night.

Alex Rios added two RBI for the Blue Jays, who blew a four-run lead in the ninth inning but recovered to post their fourth straight victory.

"It's real satisfying," Toronto manager John Gibbons said. "This would have been a tough one to lose."

With the win, Toronto snapped a five-game winning streak by New York (88-65), dropping the Yankees 2 1/2 games behind the firsth-place Boston Red Sox (91-63) in a suddenly tight American League East Division race.

"We gave ourselves a shot to win," New York left fielder Johnny Damon said. "Their bullpen just shut us down. It's real disappointing because we're 2 1/2 games behind the Red Sox."

The Red Sox routed the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 8-1, earlier Friday night.

New York used eight pitchers, including closer Mariano Rivera and rookie phenom Joba Chamberlain, who tossed two scoreless innings. But in the 14th, Zaun belted a one-out homer to right-center field off Bruney (3-2).

"Probably low middle (of the plate)," Zaun said. "One was a better pitch to hit, but my timing was off on that one. I got my foot down and got ready to hit the next one. I wasn't going to let another fastball in the strike zone go by because I didn't want to see any other stuff."

Before hitting his 10th home run, Zaun had been hitless in five at-bats. He grounded out three times off Chien-Ming Wang and struck out on three pitches in the 12th against Chamberlain.

"(It was) a fastball in," Bruney said. "I faced Zaun a few times. I had a plan. I was planning on getting ahead and getting him out with changeups. I just left one up."

"They had me pretty well boogered all day with the off-speed and the sinking me away," Zaun said. "Wang's pitches were real tough and Chamberlain just blew me away. I was going to get it ready in that at-bat and I was going to go down fighting."

Despite allowing his fourth home run in 49 2/3 innings, Bruney did strike out the side, and manager Joe Torre did not fault the pitch.

"The home-run pitch was a fastball down," Torre said. "He likes to hit the fastball. He struck out the other three guys, so you can't fault the pitch selection."

It was a wonder that the Yankees even were in that position.

The 2003 AL Cy Award winner, Halladay dominated New York for eight scoreless innings, allowing just five hits. The righthander yielded four runs - one earned - and eight hits while striking out four without a walk in 8 2/3 frames.

"Doc pitched a whale of a ballgame and he definitely deserved to win tonight," Zaun said.

Halladay worked quickly and recorded 16 ground-ball outs, throwing 68 of his 90 pitches for strikes through the first eight innings.

"It was pretty impressive (to come back) against Doc," Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi said. "He pretty much was dealing the whole game."

But New York woke up in the ninth to erase a four-run deficit with some help from Toronto's porous defense.

Damon led off the frame by slapping a double down the left field line. After Derek Jeter grounded out sharply to shortstop, Bobby Abreu ripped a single to center, sending Damon to third.

Alex Rodriguez then stroked a run-scoring single to make it 4-1. Matsui's soft grounder to second moved both runners up a base.

With two outs, the Blue Jays handed the Yankees another run thanks to second baseman Aaron Hill, whose low throw on Jorge Posada's grounder could not be scooped out of the dirt by first baseman Lyle Overbay, allowing Abreu to score and Rodriguez to move to third.

"He wanted to have a little time to set himself with Posada running," Gibbons said.

Halladay was replaced by Scott Downs, who promptly surrendered an RBI single by Robinson Cano to make it 4-3. Giambi then delivered a clutch game-tying single to left-center to plate pinch runner Bronson Sardinha and cap a four-run comeback.

But Toronto's bullpen held down New York in extra innings, led by Joe Kennedy (4-9), who got the final out of the 13th and retired the first two batters of the 14th before being replaced by Jason Frasor.

Frasor then retired pinch hitter Wilson Betemit for his third save.