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Halladay helps Blue Jays win fourth straight

May 4, 2008 - 9:58 PM TORONTO (Ticker) -- The Toronto Blue Jays finally gave Roy Halladay some run support and their ace was able to deliver.

Matt Stairs drove in a pair of runs and Halladay pitched 7 1/3 solid innings to lead the Toronto Blue Jays to a 4-3 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Sunday.

Halladay (3-4) had thrown four consecutive complete games entering the contest, but had lost his last three starts due to a combined four runs of support over that span.

The righthander allowed three runs - one earned - and just three hits with seven strikeouts, throwing 101 pitches to help extend Toronto's winning streak to four games.

"It's fun to go out after the other guys pitch well," Halladay said. "You do your best to go out and try and do the same. We're starting to score runs when we need to."

Staked to an early 4-0 lead, Halladay ran into his only trouble in the fourth when Nick Swisher led off with a double and Orlando Cabrera reached on an error by shortstop David Eckstein.

Jim Thome and Paul Konerko followed with RBI hits and A.J. Pierzynski had a run-scoring groundout to second, cutting the deficit to 4-3.

But Halladay kept things back under control, retiring 11 straight hitters until he departed with one out in the eighth.

"One of those games," Konerko said. "It was a good battle. We lost, we got beat."

Jesse Carlson and Jeremy Accardo each recorded two outs before Scott Downs got Pierzynski to ground out to second to earn his third save.

Toronto got on the board in the bottom of the second when Stairs led off with a double and came around to score on a sacrifice fly by Lyle Overbay.

Stairs added to the Blue Jays' lead in the third inning when he delivered a two-out, two-run double to center, giving Toronto a 3-0 advantage. Vernon Wells followed with an RBI single to center off Chicago starter Jose Contreras, extending the lead to 4-0.

"(Halladay's) had bad luck with us as far as swinging the bats when he's been starting," Wells said. "It was good to get him runs early."

Contreras (2-3) went eight innings and allowed four runs and six hits with five strikeouts for the White Sox, who dropped their fifth straight game. The outing was his fifth career complete game.

The righthander was again victimized by a lack of offense from Chicago, which has scored five runs and is 12-for-93 (.129) in the first three games of the series against Toronto. The series finale is set for Monday.

"Contreras did well," said White Sox third baseman Joe Crede, who was 0-for-3. "That's just the way the game goes. He'll keep his head up and go out and be great for us the next time."