NEW YORK – Curtis Granderson drove in three runs with a pair of doubles, Brett Gardner sparked the offense from his leadoff spot and the New York Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays 7-3 on Friday to match a season high with their seventh straight victory.
Mark Teixeira had an RBI double and the AL East leaders got an excellent effort from their bullpen to hold down the Blue Jays, who lead the majors with 203 home runs.
On a blustery day in the Bronx, where wind from Hurricane Earl off shore wreaked havoc with fly balls, New York made sure the last scheduled start of Brandon Morrow's encouraging season was a short one. The Yankees chased the right-hander after three innings, ending his five-game winning streak.
Gardner hit a run-scoring triple and scored three times, pacing a lineup that was missing Derek Jeter, Nick Swisher and Alex Rodriguez. Ramiro Pena added an RBI single.
Travis Snider hit a solo homer for Toronto, which fell to 7-6 against New York this season.
Coming off a four-game sweep of Oakland, the Yankees (85-50) improved to 5-0 on their 10-game homestand by winning for the 13th time in 17 games overall. They also won seven in a row from July 3-9, with five of those victories coming against the Blue Jays and Athletics.
Rookie right-hander Ivan Nova, fresh off his first major league win over the Chicago White Sox on Sunday, was pulled with two outs in the fifth as left-handed hitter Lyle Overbay stepped to the plate with two on.
Left-hander Boone Logan struck out Overbay to protect a 5-3 lead.
Overbay was back in the lineup after missing five games following a collision with reliever Brian Tallet. Overbay did not sustain a concussion, the Blue Jays said, but felt post-concussion symptoms.
Overbay got another chance with two on in the seventh but struck out against Kerry Wood (3-4), who retired all five batters he faced. Mariano Rivera worked a perfect ninth.
Handed a first-inning lead on Snider's long homer into the right-field bleachers, Morrow (10-7) walked his first two batters and threw 10 of his initial 11 pitches for balls. Teixeira hit a run-scoring double for his 99th RBI and Robinson Cano drove in another with a groundout.
Granderson, who homered twice Thursday after coming off the bench to replace an injured Swisher, pulled a two-run double down the right-field line with two outs in the second.
Granderson, who got off to a slow start in his first year with the Yankees, is coming on since tweaking his swing.
Pena's two-out RBI single made it 5-1 in the third.
Overbay and Aaron Hill hit consecutive doubles off Nova in the fourth. John McDonald's sacrifice fly cut it to 5-3.
Eduardo Nunez singled and scored on Gardner's triple to right-center in the sixth. Granderson followed with another RBI double down the right-field line.
Morrow is 8-1 with a 2.74 ERA in 13 home starts, but 2-6 in 12 starts on the road. The Blue Jays are shutting him down for the rest of the year to protect his arm — he has thrown a career-high 146 1-3 innings in his first full season as a starter.
Drafted fifth overall by Seattle in 2006, Morrow was traded to Toronto last winter. He came within one out of a no-hitter in a 17-strikeout performance Aug. 8 against Tampa Bay, throwing a career-high 127 pitches.
"We're building for the future here and hopefully he's a guy that can come back next year and throw 200 innings for us," manager Cito Gaston said.
Major League Baseball is investigating Nova and a former minor league teammate for allegedly injecting each other with B-12 shots, even though the vitamin is not on baseball's list of banned substances. MLB wants to make certain the shots were in fact B-12.
Nova pitched 5 1-3 effective innings in his first major league start Aug. 23 at Toronto.
NOTES: Blue Jays SS Yunel Escobar (stiff back) missed his fifth straight game but should be able to play Saturday. ... Toronto OF Fred Lewis (right elbow strain) was available off the bench to run but not to hit. ... Toronto C J.P Arencibia was selected MVP of the Pacific Coast League after hitting .301 with 32 homers and 85 RBIs for Triple-A Las Vegas. Arencibia was called up Wednesday when active rosters expanded. ... Kearns started in RF for Swisher (stiff left knee). Nunez started at SS in place of Jeter, who was rested.
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