Yankees - Blue Jays Preview

The Yankees are going into this series against the Blue Jays pretty confident. The Yanks have won eight straight home games against Toronto. The Blue Jays are struggling, to say the least. They have lost seven straight and are in last place in the AL East.

New York (74-53) has outscored Toronto 48-20 with a 13-4 edge in homers during this run at home in the series. The Blue Jays (56-70) are losers of seven straight for the first time since a nine-game skid from May 19-27, 2009, and 14 games under .500 for the first time since Sept. 25, 2009.

The pitching matchup for Monday's game is Phelps (3-4, 2.69 ERA) against Alvarez (7-11,4.84 ERA). Phelps is starting in place of Ivan Nova, who was placed on the 15 day DL list due to shoulder inflammation. Alvarez is 0-0 with a 5.25 ERA in two career starts against the Yankees. It will be interesting to see the matchup between Alvarez and Curtis Granderson who is for 3 for 5 against him. Tomorrow's probable starters are Hughes vs. Happ.

Derek Jeter and Nick Swisher have been sparking the Yankee offense recently. Swisher capped a strong weekend with three hits in a 4-2 victory Sunday at Cleveland. He went 7 for 11 as the Yankees took two out of three games. Swisher is hitting .378 over his last 19 games.

The Blue Jays are still without Jose Bautista, who re-injured the wrist that he was originally placed on the DL for. Adam Lind, who was not scheduled to return until next week due to a back injury, will be back in the lineup since July 25th.

The Yankees are going in as the favorite due to the record they have against the Blue Jays and how they have been performing but they do need to do certain things to win this home stand. First, Phelps needs to have a good game. He needs to deliver and keep the threatening Blue Jays offense to a minimum. Second, the Yanks need to continue to hit and run the bases as well as they have been doing. They have been producing more hits and RBI's and not only relying on home runs. Of course, home runs don't hurt! With both of those things, their defense also has to be on target. A game with good offense and pitching, but no defense and a lot of errors can certainly hurt them, and any other team. As always, go Yanks!