Blue Jays 6 Yankees 5
DUNEDIN, Fla. — A.J. Burnett got hit by a line drive and lost his command at times. He found his curveball, though, and that was encouraging to him.
Hurt by his own wild pitches and catcher Russell Martin’s sloppy play, the New York Yankees right-hander gave up four runs — two earned — and five hits in four innings of a 6-5 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday.
Burnett was struck just below the right hip, on the meaty part of his buttock, by Juan Rivera’s first-inning liner. The ball ricocheted off Burnett toward the third base line, but he remained in the game.
“It hurt, man,” he said. “It did, but it didn’t bother me too much. The line drive woke me up. I was able to find the out pitch, my strikeout pitch.
“I found my hook today. I’m going to take that from today. It was sharp, got some bad swings on it.”
Burnett threw two wild pitches, and Martin, of Chelsea, Que., committed a pair of throwing errors and allowed a passed ball. He also threw poorly on three Blue Jays stolen bases.
“I need to work out of the stretch a little bit,” Burnett said. “I’m a little slow there. Usually I’m a lot quicker than that.”
Jose Molina homered for the Blue Jays. In the third, Adam Lind doubled and with two outs Travis Snider struck out on a ball in the dirt, but Martin’s throw to first sailed down the line and Lind scored.
Toronto starter Brandon Morrow, given an early lead, worked five shutout innings, giving up three hits and striking out six.
“You want to put the pressure on them at that point and you’re going out and throwing first-pitch strikes,” he said. “That’s definitely the way you want to do it when you get a couple of runs up. Then they’ve got to try and match it . . . If you put the pressure on them you’re in a pretty good spot.”
Marc Rzepczynski took over in the sixth and gave up a run on a grounder, but Mike McCoy hit a two-run homer off Sergio Mitre in the bottom half for a 6-1 lead.
Justin Maxwell and Brandon Laird hit RBI singles off Rzepczynski in New York’s four-run eighth.