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Fragile Yankees continue series with Blue Jays

Aug 30, 2008 - 10:16 AM Toronto (68-66) at NY Yankees (72-62), 1:05 pm EDT

BRONX, New York (Ticker) -- The New York Yankees' $200 million team payroll put a ton of stock into its offense. Lately, Joe Girardi's lineup hasn't cashed in and because of it, playoff hopes have all but crashed.

The frigid bats of the Yankees are barely holding onto their playoff dreams and will look to continue piecing together the fragments of despair in the middle match of a three-game set with the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday.

Staked 10 1/2 games behind the unshakable first-place Tampa Bay Rays (82-51) in the American League East, it appears New York is destined for a second straight season without a division title. The wild-card leader Boston Red Sox (78-56) stand six games ahead of the Yankees and decreased their odds of blowing their cushion with two wins in a three-game set against them this week.

Even a recent stretch of winning five of their last seven, the Yankees seem worlds away from punching their ticket to play past September.

They have scored 11 runs over their past four games, but thanks to stellar pitching they are 2-2 in that span - including a 2-1 victory over the Blue Jays on Friday.

Carl Pavano tossed six solid frames and held the Blue Jays, who have lost three in a row, to one run and three hits. His counterpart, A.J. Burnett, tossed a complete game, allowing seven hits while striking out eight.

Darrell Rasner (5-9, 5.03 ERA) takes the mound for the Yankees with hopes of bouncing back from a rough outing against the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday, when he allowed five runs and eight hits in 3 1/3 shoddy frames.

Rasner has been shuffled in and out of the starting rotation for the better part of the second half. His inconsistency has plagued him and his most recent outings are no different. He rattled off two solid efforts against the Minnesota Twins and Toronto Blue Jays, respectively, before getting tagged by the Orioles.

The righthander has one win since June 18.

John Parrish (1-0, 4.05) will counter for Toronto as a starter for the first time since July 25, when he surrendered three runs and seven hits in five inning against the Seattle Mariners. Since then, he's logged three relief appearances in the majors.

Righthander Shaun Marcum was optioned to Class AAA Syracuse to work on his mechanics upon struggling to regain his form after coming back from an injury to his right forearm and elbow area.