Yankees Miss Opportunity to Clinch Playoff Berth
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With the chance to clinch a playoff berth within their grasp, the Yankees let it slip away – at least for a day.
Vernon Wells hit a go-ahead, two-run triple off Orlando Hernandez in the seventh inning, and the Toronto Blue Jays rallied past the Yankees 5-4 last night to send El Duque to his first loss of the season.
New York built a 3-0 lead when Bernie Williams hit a two-run homer in the first inning and Ruben Sierra added a solo shot in the second off Ted Lilly (12-10). Williams’s drive gave the Yankees six hitters with 20 or more homers for only the second time in their history, the first since the M &M Boys days with Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in 1961.
New York, which went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position, would’ve clinched no worse than a wild-card berth with a victory. The Yankees began the night with a 4 1 /2-game lead over Boston in the AL East.
Hernandez (8-1), trying to become the first Yankees starter to win his first nine decisions since Tommy John in 1979, allowed Toronto to close to 3-2 on Russ Adams’s solo homer in the third and an RBI single to Gregg Zaun in the sixth.
He allowed a double to no. 9 hitter Chris Gomez leading off the seventh, and Adams followed with a pop fly to center. Williams appeared to get a late start, and the ball dropped for a single.
After Orlando Hudson flied out, Wells lined a high pitch into the gap in right center for a 4-3 lead. Left-hander Felix Heredia relieved to face Carlos Delgado, who looped a high, opposite-field fly to left. The ball dropped near the foul line for an RBI double as the over shifted Yankees, who had been playing their infield in, couldn’t run it down.
Lilly beat his former team for the first time in four career decisions, allowing three runs and five hits in 6 1 /3 innings.
Miguel Batista pitched the ninth for his third save.
One night after his major league debut, hard-throwing right-hander Brandon League escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the seventh. Throwing pitches at 98-99 mph, he struck out Gary Sheffield, who tried to check his swing, then got Williams to ground to first.
Justin Speier relieved to start the eighth and allowed Jorge Posada’s homer into the right-field upper deck on his first pitch. Hideki Matsui then doubled, but Speier struck out Sierra and Tony Clark, then retired pinch-hitter John Olerud on a popup.