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Burnett leads Blue Jays past Yankees

Aug 20, 2008 - 3:56 AM TORONTO (Ticker) -- A.J. Burnett dominated the New York Yankees on Tuesday night -- but needed Adam Lind and a little bit of luck to bail him out.

Marco Scutaro doubled in a run in the eighth inning on a bizarre misplay by Yankees center fielder Johnny Damon, giving the Toronto Blue Jays a 2-1 victory and salvaging one of Burnett's best outings of the year.

Despite an eight-inning, 13-strikeout performance, Burnett found himself, locking horns with Yankees righthander Darrell Rasner. Rasner had the upper hand until the seventh, when Adam Lind belted a one-out solo homer to tie the game at 1-1. It was the Blue Jays' third hit.

It wasn't until the eighth that Burnett finally qualified for his 16th win, a career-high. After Joe Inglett singled with two outs, Scutaro drove a line drive to deep center. Damon looked like he had it lined up, but it bounced off his glove, allowing Inglett to score what proved to be the winning run.

"It's unacceptable," Damon said. "I know that stuff happens sometimes, but catching fly balls should not be that much of a problem."

It was the second such fielding gaffe for Damon on the night. On a nearly identical play in the first, he mishandled an Alex Rios line drive, as it ricocheted off his glove to put runners on second and third with one out. Rasner got out of the jam, striking out Vernon Wells and getting Lind to ground weakly to second.

"It was important," Rasner said of Wells. "He's a tough hitter and he can do a lot of damage. So it was big to get that strikeout. IIt kind of propelled me from there."

But after failing to plate any runners in his first at-bat, Lind found retribution six innings later, driving an inside breaking ball deep into the right-field stands. It was his ninth home run and third in his five games.

"It's a tough game," Blue Jays catcher Rod Barajas said. "You run into guys who have their A game going; today was one of those days. We were fortunate to come out of there with a win. But the way A.J. Burnett pitched, he kept us in the game and gave us a chance."

With his club trailing 2-1 in the ninth, Alex Rodriguez tried to make things interesting against Toronto closer B.J. Ryan. After striking out three times against Burnett, A-Rod muscled a bloop single into a dead zone in shallow right. He tried to stretch it into a double, but Lyle Overbay caught up to the ball and fired a laser to second base to catch Rodriguez.

Burnett allowed five hits and walked one over eight innings. His 13 strikeouts are a season-high as the Blue Jays (65-60) pulled to within one game of the Yankees (66-59) in the AL East. His only blemish came early on, as Bobby Abreu doubled to left to score Damon and give New York a 1-0 lead in the first.

"I made one mistake early, and after that I kinda locked in," Burnett said. "I didn't shake [off] Rod [Barajas] probably all night. Maybe once. He was great back there, and the big home run by Adam Lind just added on after that. So it was a pretty good win."

Rasner (5-10) gave up just three hits over 6 2/3 innings, his longest outing since going eight innings in a June 6 loss.