The Toronto Blue Jays responded to a 13-3 drubbing at the hands of the New York Yankees the previous game with a 6-4 win on Sunday at the Rogers Centre.
Randal Grichuk led the charge for the Bluebirds with two home runs and four RBI, while TJ Zeuch picked up his first career win in relief.
After Wilmer Font started the game for the Jays, Zeuch (1-0) came in to relieve him for the second frame. He went 5.1 innings, allowing five hits, three runs (two earned), while striking out five.
Zeuch made his major league debut on Sept. 3 against the Atlanta Braves after the Blue Jays called him up. Just two appearances and less than two weeks later, the 6-foot-7 right-hander earned the first victory of his career in an impressive outing against the Yankees.
The victory gave the Blue Jays (59-91) the series win over the AL East leading Yankees (98-53) as Toronto will aim to finish the season with fewer than 100 losses.
Outside of Zeuch’s brilliance, the Jays were aided by timely hitting. After Aaron Judge opened the scoring for New York with a first inning home run, Billy McKinney and Richard Urena replied for the Jays in the second, knocking in one run each to put Toronto up 2-1.
New York responded with two runs of their own in the third with RBIs from DJ LeMahieu and Didi Gregorius, but Grichuk hit his first home run of the night in the bottom half to knot things up at 3-3.
And then two innings later in his next at bat, Grichuk sent a three-run shot out of the park for his second home run of the game. The Jays took a 6-3 lead and never looked back.
The Yankees added one more run in the seventh to make it 6-4, but a one-two-three inning from closer Ken Giles shut the door in the ninth to seal the win for Toronto.
Yankees reliever Nestor Cortes Jr. (5-1) was pegged with the loss after giving up the three-run homer to Grichuk.
The Blue Jays will head to Baltimore on Tuesday to kick-off a three game series against the Orioles.