Yankees Fall to Toronto, Playoff Hopes in Grave Danger

The New York Yankees lost the the Toronto Blue Jays Sunday afternoon by a score of 6-2.

Andy Pettitte started for New York coming off a bad outing against Boston. He went 6.1 innings, gave up six earned runs on ten hits, walked one and struck out four.

Roy Halladay started for the Jays. He went seven innings, gave up two earned runs on eight hits, walked no one and struck out three.

The Jays made it hard for Pettitte right away in the top of the first. Vernon Wells singled to score Marco Scutaro, Rod Barajas doubled to left over Xavier Nady's head to score Alex Rios and Wells, and the Blue Jays took a quick 3-0 lead.

Nady appeared to lose the ball in the sun, as he took two steps forward, and then had to backpeddle to track the ball, resulting the in the double.

In the top of the second with none out, Scott Rolen nailed Pettitte's offering into the left field stands with a solo home run, his eighth homer of the year, and the Jays went up 4-0.

In the the bottom of the fourth, Alex Rodriguez put the Yanks on the board, clubbing a solo homer to straight away center field, his 29th of the year, and cut the lead to 4-1.

In the bottom of the sixth, Jason Giambi cut the lead in half. He delivered a solo home run into the short porch, his 28th big fly of the year, and the Yankees trailed 4-2.

The Jays padded their lead in the top of the seventh. David Eckstein singled to score John McDonald, and with Rios batting, Yanks' reliever Jose Veras tossed a wild pitch and Scutaro scored, giving the Jays a 6-2 lead.

From here, the Yankees couldn't mount any more offense, and the Blue Jays went on to take the game and the weekend series.

Halladay picked up the win, and improves to 17-9.

Pettitte lost, and falls to 13-11.

"We lost the ball in the sun in the first inning, got it back to 4-2, but it was too much," said skipper Joe Girardi. "The ball just got over X's head, and I didn't even think it was a hard hit ball at first."

"I'm not getting it done, that's all there is to it. I feel like I'm letting the team down when I need to be winning games right now," said Pettitte after the game. "Somebody told me the other day that Philly was seven back with 17 left to play, so I still believe we can pull this off, but I'm looking for a miracle."

Pettitte has allowed ten hits in each of his last two starts.

As poor as the pitching was today, the offense did not get it done. The Yankees were 0-8 with runners in scoring position today.

On another note, Eckstein, who went 2-4 with an RBI, played his last game of the season with Toronto today. He was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks at the end of the day.

Starting tomorrow, the Major League Baseball teams can expand the roster from 25 active players to 40 active players. Expect to see some minor leaguers called up, not just for the Yankees, but every team.

Tomorrow afternoon at 1:05 ET, the Yankees will travel to Detroit to play a make up game.

Sidney Ponson (7-5, 4.80 ERA) is scheduled to pitch against Justin Verlander (10-14, 4.53 ERA)