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Overbay's blast sends Blue Jays past Angels

May 23, 2008 - 3:43 AM TORONTO (Ticker) -- The Toronto Blue Jays have been out-hitting the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim all series long. However, it took until the finale for it to work in their favor.

Lyle Overbay hit the tie-breaking home run in the bottom of the sixth Thursday, sending the Blue Jays to a 4-3 win over the Angels.

Toronto's .303 (30-for-99) batting average far exceeded Anaheim's dismal .170 (16-for-94) average during the three-game set, but the Blue Jays only had four runs and two losses to show for it. They repeatedly failed to come up with clutch hits, going 4-for-21 with runners in scoring position entering Thursday's game.

However, it was Anaheim's Torii Hunter who best reflected on each teams' respective woes.

"When you struggle, you try to figure it out," he said. "It's a ceiling that a lot of guys probably don't have right now.

"Whenever you have that good feeling, you know that you can go out there and do it. (But) you got two guys hot and four guys cold and you never have the consistency of everybody all clicking on the cylinders at the same time."

That all changed in the series finale. Toronto went 4-for-8 in such situations as Joe Inglett and Brad Wilkerson came up with run-scoring hits in the third. Rod Barajas added an RBI single in the fourth to stake the Blue Jays to a 3-0 lead.

But it was Overbay who came through the most in the clutch. With one out and the score tied at 3-3 in the sixth, he lifted a 2-2 slider from Ervin Santana (6-2) over the fence in right for his third homer of the season.

"(I was) just trying to battle," Overbay said. "He hung a pitch. I know he was trying to go down and in but he didn't get it down enough and I actually put a pretty good swing on it."

A.J. Burnett (5-4) claimed his second win in as many starts, yielding three runs and six hits with two walks and six strikeouts in six frames.

Rookie Jesse Carlson and Scott Downs each tossed a scoreless inning of relief before yielding to closer B.J. Ryan, who set the Angels down in order in the ninth to collect his 10th save in as many chances.

"It was a battle," Burnett said. "The relievers came in and did a wonderful job. Maybe we can get a streak going now."

Santana allowed four runs and nine hits with two walks and seven strikeouts in the loss. The righthander suffered his second straight loss after beginning the season with six wins in his first eight starts.

"Too many pitches - like the first three innings - I threw too many pitches," Santana said. "A couple of bloopers and I can't do anything about it. One mistake and that was a backdoor slider to (Overbay)."

Sean Rodriguez's run-scoring double in the fifth provided the Angels' first run and also gave the rookie his first career extra-base hit and RBI. Maicer Izturis and Jeff Mathis each plated runs for the Angels, who lost for the first time in four games.