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Offense, Halladay help Blue Jays make easy work of Yankees

Aug 22, 2008 - 5:05 AM TORONTO (Ticker) -- By the third inning on Thursday night, Roy Halladay already had more run support than he needed. The Toronto Blue Jays kept pouring it on anyway.

Halladay continued his dominance over the New York Yankees, striking out nine in seven strong innings as the Blue Jays rolled to a 14-3 triumph.

Marco Scutaro drove in four runs while Alex Rios and Matt Stairs added three RBI apiece to lead a 21-hit onslaught as the Blue Jays (66-61) took two of three in the series and continued to push the Yankees in the American League wild card race. Toronto currently is one game behind New York (67-60) and seven back of the idle Boston Red Sox (73-54).

"Really, it comes down to numbers - how many games you win the rest of the year," Halladay said. "I think we keep that in mind. Obviously, these are big series for us. To be able to play well the last three series that we've had is important for us. Hopefully, we continue. Regardless of who we're playing, we need those wins."

Rios opened the scoring in the first inning, weakly lining a shot into right-center field. The ball was played poorly by center fielder Johnny Damon and right fielder Bobby Abreu, allowing Rios to reach with an RBI single.

Rios was not done, however, neither was the rest of the Blue Jays' offense. He added a two-run double in the third, a five-run inning that also saw John McDonald plate two with a single.

"They came alive tonight," Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston said of his team's bats. "You hope that you can do just half of that the rest of the season. That'd be great."

Stairs delivered a three-run double in the fourth to make it 10-0, and Scutaro blasted a three-run homer off reliever Billy Traber an inning later. Scutaro, who had four hits on the night, capped the scoring with an RBI double in the eighth.

"It's always nice when you score a bunch of runs," Scutaro said. "In the last series in Boston, we had a game kind of like that, too. So it's always nice, especially as we've been struggling scoring runs this season."

But with Halladay (15-9) on the mound, any runs scored after the first few innings were unnecessary. The righthander beat the Yankees for the third time in four tries this season, improving his lifetime record against them to 13-5 with a 2.92 ERA.

"It's fun pitching in games like that, especially against good teams," Halladay said. "It's nice to have those runs, and you can go out and be aggressive. It was a great job by our hitters, not only getting runs, but continuing to add on."

Six weeks after tossing a two-hit shutout against New York, Halladay kept the Yankees off the scoreboard until Hideki Matsui belted a three-run homer in the seventh.

"He's not the best pitcher in the league for nothing," Damon said. "He could be the ace on any team in the big leagues. That's how good he is."

Yankees starter Sidney Ponson (7-4) was tagged for seven runs and eight hits in two-plus innings.

"My sinker wasn't there, my slider wasn't there, changeup wasn't there," Ponson said. "I was just pitching (garbage). I let these guys down tonight. After the win last night, it would have been nice to go out there and have a way-better game than I had against Roy Halladay."

"Sidney's pitched well for us, and I don't make too much out of one game," New York manager Joe Girardi said. "You're not going to forget how to pitch after one game. He just had an off-night."