多方報導：王建民喜獲本季第十三勝

NEW YORK — At this point, Chien-Ming Wang’s long outings are barely even newsworthy. He does them so often.
But this one wasn’t as impressive as the last, in which Wang threw a shutout against the Devil Rays while allowing only two hits.

This time Wang only tossed eight shutout innings and gave up four hits to lead the Yankees to a 7-2 win over the Blue Jays on Wednesday night.

For the past month, manager Joe Torre repeated the quote that he doesn’t like to expect Wang to pitch seven or eight strong innings every time goes out because the 26-year-old Taiwan native is so young. Finally, even he had to surrender.

“I guess I have to be beyond that, because when I send him out there the only thing you keep an eye on is the pitch count,” Torre said.

When Wang walked past Torre before the eighth, Torre said, “What are you doing, quitting?” Wang pointed to pitching coach Ron Guidry. A high pitch count was the only reason why Wang didn’t get to finish another gem.

Torre said he was tempted to leave Wang in, but that after topping 100 pitches for the second straight game, and in New York’s sweltering heat, enough was enough. Wang, as usual, didn’t want to come out.

“He’s got a fire in his belly, there’s no question about it,” Torre said.

Wang has now gone at least seven innings in 14 starts this season, by far the highest on the Yankees’ staff. He has won five straight starts and is 13-4 with a 3.58 ERA on the season. Wang said this is the best he’s pitched in his career, and that it’s been a lot of fun.

That is unless you’re on the other team.

“A guy that pitches 95-plus with sink like that, you’ve got to tip your cap sometimes,” Toronto second baseman Aaron Hill said.

The Blue Jays threatened in the second inning when Wang uncharacteristically walked three batters in one inning. But with the bases loaded and two outs, Wang broke John McDonald’s bat on the first pitch to get an easy ground out.

After the inning, Wang retired 17 of the next 20 batters he faced, 13 of which on ground balls. Guidry said he simply told Wang to keep his weight back and arm up to get better bite on his sinker.

The heat would seem to make things more difficult for any pitcher, but the sweat-drenched Wang labored on.

“[It’s] not bad,” he said. “Taiwan is the same.”

Wang got plenty of support behind him as every hitter in the lineup reached base at least once and all but ninth-hitter Miguel Cairo got a hit. The two through five hitters were a combined 11-for-22 with six RBIs. Bobby Abreu logged a single and double in his second game in pinstripes, and Craig Wilson was 2-for-4 in his debut.

But the Yankees were up only 1-0 heading into the sixth as Toronto starter Ted Lilly was baffling despite a solo homer by Derek Jeter in the third.

Alex Rodriguez began chipping away at him in the sixth. Rodriguez hit a shot to left field and thought he had a double from the start. But as he rounded first with Tony Pena’s approval, his teammates yelled “no” from the dugout.

The throw beat Rodriguez by plenty — and he started his slide much earlier than one would think — but as he came to the bag he had enough time to pull back his leading left hand and swoop around with his right to get in before the tag.

“You kind of feel like you’re coming in without your homework and the teachers calls your name,” Rodriguez said. “I just got kind of lucky. That was kind of a goofy slide anyway.”

The double ignited a six-run rally featuring a Jorge Posada two-run homer in the next at-bat and capped off by a two-run single by Rodriguez. After hitting perhaps a season-low in a four-game series at Toronto not more than two weeks ago, Rodriguez is 5-for-9 with four RBIs in the Yankees’ first two games of this series.

But while Rodriguez may be finding his stroke, it’s Wang who has truly broken onto the scene. Johnny Damon said Wang has been as good as ace Mike Mussina during the past few weeks. Jeter felt he has proved more than that.

“When you talk about the top pitchers in the league, you have to put his name up there,” Jeter said. “He’s pitching as well as anybody in baseball.”