Blue Jays hang on to beat Athletics

Lyle Overbay hasn't homered in months, but one of his trademark doubles proved to be the clutch hit for the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday night.

Overbay broke a 2-2 deadlock with a two-run, bases-loaded double in the eighth inning as the visiting Blue Jays prevailed 5-4 over the Oakland Athletics before a crowd of 20,542 at McAfee Coliseum.

Reed Johnson and Alex Rios singled and Troy Glaus walked to put three runners aboard for Overbay, who doubled off the base of the wall in right field.

Overbay grounded into inning-ending double plays in his previous two at-bats.

"I haven't been able to drive the ball," he said. "It is frustrating.

"This ball was a little farther up. Not much, but I was able to get some air underneath it instead of hitting it on the ground."

Aaron Hill capped the outburst with a sacrifice fly that delivered Glaus from third base with the decisive run.

Overbay was a happy contributor because he has endured a serious power outage since being activated from the disabled list on July 12.

He belted eight home runs in his first 55 games this season, but hasn't homered since suffering a broken right hand on June 3 — a 44-game drought.

"It hurts," Overbay said. "But it hurts after my swing, so it is not one of those things that I am changing my swing — I just don't have a feel of it.

"I hate blaming it on that because I feel like I can still put good swings on the bat. It's just I'm not getting that line-drive lift, which is frustrating for me."

Fredericton's Matt Stairs homered and Rios had the other run batted in for the Blue Jays (67-65), who have won three of their last four games to move within seven games of the front-running Seattle Mariners in the American League wild-card race.

Rookie Brian Wolfe (3-1) notched the win in relief of rookie starter Jesse Litsch, who settled down nicely after spotting the Athletics a 2-0 lead in the first inning.

Litsch lasted six innings, allowing two runs on four hits and one walk with three strikeouts.

Jeremy Accardo conceded two runs in the ninth inning before being replaced by Casey Janssen, who retired Shannon Stewart on a groundout for a one-pitch save — his fourth of the season.

"Things were just starting to snowball," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. "My gut told me maybe it was time [to switch to Janssen]."

"It's good to see how we came back against a closer again," Athletics manager Bob Geren said. "We've done that numerous times this year.

"We almost did it again. It shows the fight in the guys."

Jack Cust drove in two runs and scored another for the Athletics (65-69), losers in their last five outings.

Marco Scutaro and rookie Jack Hannahan had RBI singles in the ninth.

Oakland starter Chad Gaudin surrendered two runs on five hits and four walks with five strikeouts over seven innings.

Andrew Brown (2-1) absorbed the loss as he was charged with three runs on three hits and one walk in just one inning pitched.

Oakland went ahead 2-0 in the bottom of the first inning as Mark Ellis singled and Nick Swisher doubled to bring up Cust, who singled in both runners.

Stairs cut the deficit in the top of the fourth inning with his 16th home run of the season, a solo shot to left-centre field off Gaudin.

Toronto tied it 2-2 in the sixth inning when Vernon Wells led off with triple beyond the reach of Swisher in centre field and scored on an RBI double from Rios.

Series notes

Toronto took the opener 6-2, and will try to sweep the series behind former Cy Young Award winner Roy Halladay in a Wednesday matinee (3:30 p.m. ET).

The Blue Jays have split eight meetings with the Athletics this season, posting all four wins at McAfee Coliseum.

With files from the Canadian Press

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Blue Jays hang on to beat Athletics

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