TORONTO – Ben Rice taketh, Ben Rice giveth.
After his brutal fielding error allowed the Blue Jays to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth inning, the slugging first baseman quickly made up for it with the kind of big swing that has been missing too often of late.
Rice crushed a two-run shot in the top of the 10th before the Yankees held on in the bottom of the frame to stave off the sweep and secure a 4-2 win over the Blue Jays at a sold-out Rogers Centre on Sunday afternoon.
After David Bednar had thrown 1 2/3 innings in relief of a terrific Ryan Weathers, Tim Hill entered for the bottom of the 10th and after allowing the automatic runner to score on a bloop single, nailed down the save.
Weathers delivered one of his best starts of the season to out-duel Dylan Cease, throwing 7 1/3 innings of one-run ball, while José Caballero – making an increasingly rare start for the slumping Jazz Chisholm Jr. – provided the offense.
He walked and scored a run in the third inning before driving in the go-ahead run on a single in the seventh inning.
With the Yankees clinging to a one-run lead entering the bottom of the ninth, Rice whiffed on a ground ball to first base, allowing the leadoff man to reach.
Bednar followed by walking Alejandro Kirk before getting the first out on George Springer’s pop up.
But then on an 0-2 pitch to Ernie Clement, Bednar spiked a curveball that got past Ali Sánchez, allowing the runners to move up to second and third. Two pitches later, Clement hit a sacrifice fly to tie it 2-2.
Still, thanks to Rice’s 33rd home run, the Yankees (69-55) picked up a game on the Rays in the division for the first time since Aug. 2, moving within 5 1/2 games of them while cooling off the Blue Jays (61-65), who have surged to the periphery of the third AL wild card.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
