Jays Take Series From Yanks With 14-3 Thrashing

Roy Halladay must have been wondering whether he was dreaming on Thursday night.

But the Blue Jays ace, who is used to getting little to no help from his offence, actually was enjoying a real-life offensive explosion as the Toronto bats obliterated the New York Yankees pitching staff in a 14-3 thumping before a crowd of 37,037 at the Rogers Centre.

Halladay (15-9), who was receiving an average of just 3.8 runs from his offence before the game, didn’t need the 21-hit parade as he held the Yankees off the board until Hideki Matsui smashed a meaningless three-run homer in the seventh to cut the Jays’ lead to a mere 13-3.

Usually the opposite of an offensive juggernaut, Toronto (65-61) sent the fading Yankees to their largest margin defeat of the year and moved within seven games of the wild card heading into a critical three-game series against the wild card-leading Boston Red Sox at the Rogers Centre.

The Jays are one game back of the fading Yankees (67-60) for third place in the wild card race after winning two of three against New York in the series and seven of their past nine overall.

The Jays, who scored just three runs in the first two games of the series, made life miserable for five Yankees pitchers on Thursday, including awful starter Sidney Ponson (7-4).

Meanwhile, Halladay coasted through seven innings, giving up three runs and five hits to put him one win behind A.J. Burnett for the team lead. With a nasty curveball on display, Halladay struck out nine Yankees to give him 168 for the season, 10 behind AL-leading Burnett.

Ponson was removed with no out in the third with the Jays up 5-0. By the time the inning was over, Ponson was charged with giving up seven runs.

Six Jays had RBIs, with Marco Scutaro knocking in a game-high four runs. Scutaro hit the lone Jays home run, belting a Billy Traber offering over the wall in left to put the Jays up 13-0 in the fifth.

Alex Rios and Matt Stairs of Fredericton had three RBIs apiece.

Stairs got the crowd chanting, `Yankees suck’ after clearing the bases with a three-run double off Traber in the fourth.

Jays reliever Scott Downs came in to work a scoreless eighth, marking his first appearance since he sprained an ankle last Wednesday in Detroit.

The Jays, who scored runs in each of the first five innings, couldn’t quite match the season-high 15 runs they scored in a 15-4 road win over the Red Sox on Sunday.

But the big night will leave the Jays feeling good about themselves heading into a series where anything less than a sweep will leave them with a large gap to make up down the stretch. The Jays have 10 games left against the Red Sox and they’ll need to win a large majority of them to give themselves a chance to earn an improbable playoff berth.