The first inning was quite uneventful but after the first inning there was some offense that broke out on both sides. First, the Blue Jays offense tagged Ivan Nova for four earned runs in the second inning and before long you had to assume that the Yankee offense wouldn't be able to catch up. Fortunately, the second inning would be the only one in which Toronto would come around to score. A few light tappers turned into four runs in the inning and the life was sucked out of the stadium. As for the Yankees offense, Robinson Cano would provide the first spark of life when he lifted a long fly ball into the left field seats to score Gardner and Ichiro who fought their way on base. Speaking of Ichiro, the Japanese star has a good chance of recording his 4,000th career professional hit against Mark Buehrle and these same Blue Jays. For the Yankees their ultimate stamp on the game came in the sixth inning with two outs and two on for Chris Stewart. A rarity for Stewart, he lifted a line drive down the left field line for a go-ahead three-run home run to give the Yankees a 6-4 lead. However, the game felt like it was anything but over. When the Yankees added a couple of insurance runs, one in each of the eighth and ninth innings, the game was essentially over.
Things would get sweaty for the Yankees when a couple of relievers made the game interesting by walking batters, mainly Shawn Kelley. The bases were loaded in the seventh with the score still 6-4 but Kelley got Brett Lawrie to lift a fly ball to right center field for Brett Gardner to catch easily. Ivan Nova pitched well enough to earn his seventh win of the season behind a powerful Yankees offense. Girardi mixed and matched for the remainder of the game but ended up using Mariano Rivera to get the final two outs after Joba Chamberlain began the inning by recording only one out before walking Rajai Davis.
The Yankees better hope they can score runs for Phil Hughes who along with getting no run support, has been downright awful this year. Hughes needs his offense to score him some runs but in order for them to do so he needs to give them a chance to win before allowing a big inning. As written earlier, Hughes will pitch against lefty Mark Buehrle who has not pitched well against the Yankees in his career. One of two trends will buck today; either Hughes will pitch a good game for the Yankees or Buehrle will finally record a win against the aforementioned Yankees.
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