YANKEES 6
BLUE JAYS 3
TORONTO – With the Yankees poised to bathe each other in champagne and beer tonight if they clinch the AL East, there is another use for the bubbly and suds: pain reliever.
If the Yankees beat the Blue Jays tonight, they cop their ninth straight AL East crown. Should they lose and the Red Sox get beat by the Twins, the Yankees are champs. Either way, the booze will flow.
However, the Yankees are wounded.
Last night’s 6-3 win over the Blue Jays in front of 30,793 at Rogers Centre made busy men out of trainers Gene Monahan and Steve Donohue.
Jason Giambi left with a recurring left wrist problem and will likely miss at least three games. Derek Jeter was hit in the right hand. He stayed in the game but used his left hand for celebratory fist bumps. Johnny Damon took on gravel with a dive on the warning track in center making a game-saving catch.
None of the three, along with Jorge Posada, will play tonight when Sean Henn makes his first start against Roy Halladay.
“This is the first day we can say when we show up [today] we have a chance [to clinch],” Joe Torre said.
Torre and his players have avoided clinch talk, but Damon admitted the Yankees believed they won the East when they took five from the Red Sox in Boston Aug. 18-21 and went up 6½ games.
“When we walked out of Boston we felt it, and it was awesome,” Damon said.
“After that, we felt we deflated them.” The Yankees received another solid pitching effort from a Triple-A pitcher.
One night after Darrell Rasner provided six innings and showed a lot of guts, Jeff Karstens (2-1) allowed three runs in 61/3 and avoided a lot of trouble that giving up 10 hits and three walks brings.
Bobby Abreu’s two-run homer in the seventh snapped a 3-3 tie. Hideki Matsui added a homer in the eighth. Posada homered in the second and Melky Cabrera added two RBIs.
“Now it’s a case of if we win one it’s over with,” said Jeter, who singled and scored ahead of Abreu’s homer.
Tied, 3-3, Karstens had the bases loaded and Russ Adams at the plate and two outs in the fifth. Adams lofted a fly to deep center that Damon grabbed with a head-first dive toward the same wall where he broke a bone in his foot earlier this season.
“I got some gravel in my [left] hand, but I will be OK,” Damon said as he soaked the ripped skin in beer.
The Yankees would prefer clinching tonight then letting their heads clear on tomorrow’s off day.
“We want to get this thing clinched, and the sooner the better,” Torre said.
