The Captain's Blog

For much of the season, the Blue Jays have turned their games at SkyDome into Home Run Derby, but this time around the Yankees turned the tables on the home team by launching five long balls of their own.

Marcus Thames slams into home plate umpire Mark Wegner while trying to score in the second inning. In the third inning, Thames would find an easier way to touch home plate when he belted his fifth home run of the season (Photo: AP).

The Yankees jumped out to an early 2-0 lead against soft tossing lefty Mark Rzepczynski with single runs in the first two innings, but the fun didn’t really start until the third inning. Mark Teixeira got the ball rolling with a titanic blast off the windows of the luxury suites high above the left field seats. Then, after a Robinson Cano walk, Marcus Thames and Jorge Posada hit back-to-back home runs to extend the lead to 6-0. The Yankees erupted for another four run frame in the fifth inning. This time, Brian Tallet was the victim of the Yankees power display as all four runs resulted from a Curtis Granderson three-run shot and a Derek Jeter solo blast.

While the Yankees’ hitters were rounding the bases, Dustin Moseley was quietly preventing the Blue Jays from doing the same. Despite yielding four walks to go along with five hits over his six innings, Moseley was able to prevent the Jays from climbing back into the game by keeping their lineup full of sluggers in the park, reversing a trend that saw him surrender seven home runs over his previous three starts. Moseley’s bounce back performance may have been partly inspired by the presence of Ivan Nova, who parlayed his impressive major league debut into a second start against the White Sox on Sunday. This time around, Javier Vazquez was the victim of Nova’s emergence, but had Moseley struggled once again, his spot in the rotation would have grown more tenuous. In any event, by holding an explosive Blue Jay team in check, Moseley at least bought himself another start as the Yankees begin to count down the days until Andy Pettitte’s return.

In addition to their home run barrage, the Yankees also banged out 17 hits, including four each by Teixeira and Posada as well as three a piece from Granderson and Thames. It wasn’t all wine and roses for the offense, however, as both Robinson Cano and Austin Kearns were held hitless and, more importantly, Nick Swisher was forced to leave the game after fouling a ball off his knee in the seventh inning.

• The Yankees hit five homeruns for the second time this season. On August 14, the Yankees also belted five long balls against the Royals.
• Derek Jeter’s fifth inning homerun was his first in 145 plate appearances when he hit an inside-the-park home run against Bruce Chen of the Royals. The last time Jeter had hit a HR out of the park was back on June 12 when he belted a pair against the Astros, a span covering 61 games and 283 plate appearances. Jeter’s longest home run drought occurred over 75 games between May 10 and August 6 in 1997.
• With a scoreless ninth, Kerry Wood has now thrown 10 consecutive innings without surrendering a run. Since joining the Yankees, Wood has an 0.84 ERA in 10 2/3 innings.