Toronto @ New York preview
Yankee Stadium
Last Meeting ( Jul 3, 2010 ) Toronto 3, NY Yankees 11
The number 11 has been significant in each of the first two games of the Toronto Blue Jays' three-game weekend series against the New York Yankees.
Phil Hughes hopes 11 is the magic number in Sunday's series finale.
The star right-hander looks for his 11th victory of the season for the Yankees, who reach the season's halfway pole with their first shot at their 50th win of the year.
The teams exchanged one-sided victories in the first two games of the series. The Blue Jays needed 11 innings to beat the Yankees 6-1 in the opener, while New York used an 11-run third inning to cruise to an 11-3 win over Toronto the following afternoon.
It was the Yankees' biggest inning since scoring 13 runs in the eighth inning of a 20-11 win over Tampa Bay on June 21, 2005.
It took a little while for the Yankees to reach the top of the American League East standings, as they sat second behind the Tampa Bay Rays for the first two months of the season. The Rays faltered in June and the Yankees took advantage, seizing control of the division before the Boston Red Sox went on a hot streak to make it a three-team race.
New York enters today's action with a razor-thin half-game lead over the Red Sox for top spot, while the Rays are hanging tough, two games back. Following their own June collapse, one that saw them go 9-17 for the month, Toronto has fallen nine games back of the Yankees.
Today's focus is squarely on Hughes (10-2), who was rocked in his last start after being passed over in the rotation so the Yankees can limit his innings. The 24-year-old surrendered seven runs on 10 hits over 5 2/3 innings on the way to a 7-4 loss to the Seattle Mariners.
Hughes had been devastating to opposing hitters prior to that, winning five straight games to become the first Yankees pitcher to reach the 10-win plateau. Ace left-hander CC Sabathia has since reached the milestone, while veteran lefty Andy Pettitte became the third in Saturday's one-sided victory.
Hughes is 1-1 all-time against the Blue Jays, with a 3.44 ERA in 12 games (five starts).
Toronto counters with Brandon Morrow (5-6), who saw his recent hot streak halted in his last start. The 25-year-old surrendered five runs on seven hits over six innings as the Blue Jays dropped a 5-4 decision to the Cleveland Indians.
Morrow had been Toronto's best pitcher over his previous five outings, limiting the opposition to just five runs in 34 innings over that span. The stretch of sensational pitching reduced his ERA from an abysmal 6.66 to a far more manageable 4.50.
Morrow hasn't done badly against the Yankees in his career. He's 1-0 with a 3.13 ERA over 23 innings all-time, though he has issued 14 walks in that time.