Their closer gave up the go-ahead run, and the winning hit came from a player who was not supposed to get an at-bat.

Yankees manager Joe Torre would have preferred an easier route to the win that moved New York into sole possession of the AL wild-card lead.

Felix Escalona’s bases-loaded single with two outs in the ninth inning gave the Yankees a 5-4 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays last night. New York is percentage points ahead of Cleveland for the wild-card lead.

“It was a good game all the way around, and I don’t ever want to play it again,” Torre said.

Hideki Matsui hit a tying homer in the ninth, and Derek Jeter had two hits in his return to the lineup for the Yankees (69-55), who scored in each of the final four innings to win for the ninth time in 12 games and reach 14 games over .500 for the first time this season.

Escalona, who got his first hit of the season Monday, went in to play first base after Tino Martinez was pinch run for in the eighth inning. Torre inserted Escalona into the no. 2 spot in the batting order, which meant he was the seventh batter up in the ninth.

“Shows you how smart the manager is,” Torre said. “You put him in that spot so he won’t have to come up.”

New York, which didn’t lead until the final hit, had been tied for the wild-card lead with Oakland, which lost at Detroit. Cleveland (70-56) is less than a percentage point behind the Yankees.

Vernon Wells had three hits, including a homer, as the Blue Jays wasted a strong start by Josh Towers and lost their fifth straight.

Toronto took a 4-3 lead off Mariano Rivera (6-3) in the ninth, but Matsui led off the bottom half with his 20th homer, a drive off Miguel Batista. Jorge Posada walked with one out, and Robinson Cano walked with two outs. Batista then intentionally walked Jeter to load the bases for Escalona, who singled to center on an 0-2 pitch for what he said was his first game-winning hit.

“This is the first time, ever,” he said. “I still can’t believe it.”

After New York tied it in the eighth, Orlando Hudson singled off Rivera with one out when Escalona came off first base to grab Jeter’s high throw. Hudson took second on an infield out and scored on Reed Johnson’s single, beating Matsui’s throw from left.

Al Leiter allowed three runs and six hits with one walk in seven-plus innings. The left-hander threw 121 pitches – 50 more than Towers needed to get the same amount of outs.

Towers allowed a leadoff single to Jeter, then retired 15 in a row before Martinez singled on the first pitch of the sixth and scored on Bernie Williams’s sacrifice fly. Posada hit a sacrifice fly in the seventh, but Shea Hillenbrand hit an RBI single against Tanyon Sturtze in the eighth for a 3-2 lead.

Williams’s two-out run-scoring single retied the score in the bottom half.