Yankees 5, Blue Jays 2: Tanaka solid in comeback start

Today was a good day for the Yankees. Masahiro Tanaka came back and not only made it through his outing, but looked good doing so. The offense hit a couple dingers, including the 15,000th in team history. And the bullpen sealed a 5-2 win over the Blue Jays without much trouble. Oh, and David Cone mentioned Pinstripe Alley on air.

The Blue Jays picked up an early run against Tanaka in the first. Jose Reyes and Jose Bautista led of the game with two-straight singles, with Reyes moving to third on Bautista's. Tanaka then got Edwin Encarnacion to ground into a double play, but it did score a run.

The Yankees got that run back in the bottom half of the inning when Brian McCann hit a solo home run. After one inning, the game was tied at one.

After that, neither offense could get anything going for a while. Tanaka looked impressive on his return, while Drew Hutchison was also pretty good as he held down the Yankees. It wasn't until the fifth inning until another run was scored. Brett Gardner led off the bottom of the fifth with a home run, which was the 15,000th in Yankees' history. The historical homer gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead.

Tanaka came back out for the sixth, but after allowing a pair of singles on either side of a force out grounder, he was taken out. He went 5.1 innings, allowing one run on five hits and no walks while striking out four. It couldn't have gone much better. It was nice to see him back. Adam Warren came in and got two strikeouts to get out of the jam. Warren also pitched a 1-2-3 seventh inning.

In the bottom of the seventh, the top of the Yankees' order picked up a couple of insurance runs. Gardner added to his big day with a double. He would score when Derek Jeter followed that with a double. That brought McCann to the plate. For the second time in the game, McCann homered. That made it 5-1 Yankees.

Dellin Betances came in to pitch the eighth. Reyes picked up a single, stole two bases and scored when Encarnacion lined a two-out single off the wall. Betances limited the damage to just one run, but the score was now 5-2.

After the Yankees went down in order in the eighth, David Robertson came in to get the save in the ninth. Robertson got the first two outs without much trouble but allowed a walk to Dalton Pompey. However, Robertson came right back and struck out George Kottaras to seal a 5-2 win. It was an all-around nice win for the Yankees.

The Orioles will now come to New York for a series, which will be Derek Jeter's last at home. Tomorrow's starting pitchers will be Michael Pineda and Wei-Yin Chen.

Box score.