Yanks tag Morrow, top Toronto 7-3 for seventh straight victory

Brandon Morrow didn’t get to leave much of a lasting impression in his last start of the season, as the Yankees got to the flamethrower — who, surprisingly, seemed to be relying mostly on off-speed stuff yesterday — for five runs over a mere three innings en route to a 7-3 Yankee victory. The win was the team’s seventh straight, tied for their longest winning streak of the season.

Ivan Nova was serviceable — giving up three runs over 4 2/3 innings — but once again Joe Girardi wouldn’t let him pitch deep once the youngster ran into a bit of trouble, opting instead to go to the bullpen with two outs in the fifth and runners on 1st and 2nd. Nova had labored a bit, though he was only at 76 pitches when Girardi lifted him, and he probably could’ve completed the fifth. In any event, the bullpen continued its lights-out work, with Boone Logan, David Robertson, Kerry Wood and Mariano Rivera combining for 4 1/3 shutout innings.

The offense also continued to look excellent, with the 1-2 punch of Brett Gardner and Curtis Granderson combining to reach base seven times in 10 plate appearances, scoring four runs and driving in four. Gardner’s OBP inched up to .390 (Carl Crawford‘s OBP? .349), still good for 8th-best in the AL, and I can’t say enough about how impressive that is this deep into the season, especially since Gardy is not a guy who’s typically going to beat you with the long ball. In fact, he has the lowest SLG (.383) of the top 20 in OBP. Not only that, but Gardy still leads all of baseball in pitches per plate appearance by a country mile, with 4.62 compared to Daric Barton‘s 4.43. I think Girardi would be out of his mind not to bat Gardner leadoff for the rest of the season at this point, but unfortunately these decisions are not mine to make.

It was great to see the Yankees beat the Extra Base Hits at their own game, picking up three doubles and a triple to Toronto’s two doubles and a home run. Lance Berkman picked up two more hits, as did Eduardo Nunez and Ramiro Pena.

The Yankees look to extend their winning streak to a season-high eight this afternoon, as Marc “Scrabble” Rzepcyznski faces Home Run Javier Vazquez. Should be an interesting one.

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