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TORONTO (CP) - The Toronto Blue Jays found the right way to get some payback against the New York Yankees on Wednesday night, shutting down their offence behind Roy Halladay and crushing Chien-Ming Wang for eight runs in the worst start of his career.

Back to playing baseball, the 15-4 beating of the Bronx Bombers followed an ugly contest Tuesday during which the dugouts cleared twice after Alex Rodriguez was hit in the leg by Josh Towers.

A-Rod sat this one out with a bruised calf as the Blue Jays (57-56) salvaged some pride by convincingly winning the series finale after falling 5-4 and 9-2 in the first two games with the surging Yankees (63-51), who had won five straight.

"Guys really wanted to keep on them," said Halladay. "That's probably a residue of (Tuesday), nobody wanted to let down, they wanted to keep going, keep hitting, keep scoring. ..

"If we can play like that all year, we're going to be tough. It was just never quit, never stop, keep going after them."
 
Pushing the emotions of Tuesday aside, Halladay (13-5) was at his best early in this one, allowing just two runs on three hits in the first six innings. Up 14-2 in the seventh, he gave up solo shots to Hideki Matsui and Robinson Cano that were only meaningful to poolies.

By then the Blue Jays offence, enjoying its most productive night of the season, had already decided things and exacted some vengeance before a crowd of 40,811. Their outburst included a club-record tying nine doubles and a rare thrashing of Wang (13-6), the New York ace who was 3-1 with a 3.06 ERA against them coming in.

"If these guys would have beat us again tonight easily, a lot of heads would have been hanging in the locker-room thinking, `Do we have what it takes to beat these guys?"' said Matt Stairs of Fredericton, who scored three runs out of the leadoff spot. "It's a huge win."

This one was never in doubt as the Blue Jays were on Wang from the get-go, scoring three in the first on Alex Rios' RBI double a two-run single from Vernon Wells.

After Cano's two-run shot made it 3-2 in the second, they scored five more in a bat-around third on Lyle Overbay's RBI single, Wells' run-scoring double, Frank Thomas' RBI single and Gregg Zaun's two-run double. That ended the shortest start of Wang's career after just 2 2-3 innings and a career-high eight runs allowed.

"We put some good at-bats on him," said Jays manager John Gibbons. "You figure (Wang and Halladay) going head-to-head it's not going to be a lopsided game like that."

Intent to drive home a point, the Blue Jays kept adding on from there.

Thomas' two-run double in the fourth made it 9-2 and they scored five more in a bat-round sixth on Wells' sacrifice fly - his fourth RBI of the night - and two-run singles by Aaron Hill and John McDonald.

Thomas ripped another RBI double in the seventh to make it 15-4.

"It's the right way to react to what happened," said Wells. "Anytime you can do that after a loss like (Tuesday) is huge. That's what you have to do in a situation like this when you're playing one of your rivals and you need a big win." 

Stairs doubled in his first two at-bats which gave him two-baggers in five straight plate appearances, becoming the first Blue Jay to accomplish the feat. He once again showed his leadership after twice having to be restrained from getting at Rodriguez during Tuesday's melees, which stemmed from anger at A-Rod dating back to his fake "mine" call May 30.

"That was just fun playing Canadian baseball," said Stairs. "Whatever happened, happened, it was fun to be a part of, but it's over with. They bounced back (Tuesday) night after it happened and kicked our asses and embarrassed us and we bounced back and swung the bats well and beat them."

Every Blue Jays starter had at least one hit except for Troy Glaus, who is now on an 0-for-21 slide, part of a larger 8-for-76 slump. Overbay had three hits to end an 0-for-13 run, part of a larger 7-for-54 rut.

While the Blue Jays crushed the ball at the plate, the Yankees did the exact opposite. Most of them had miserable days, particularly right-fielder Bobby Abreu, who was ejected for arguing a called third strike with home plate umpire Derryl Cousins in the fourth inning. It was the second time Halladay got him looking.

Halladay ended up going seven innings, allowing four runs on six hits while striking out eight.

"You realize what a good team they are and you're not always going to stick it to them," said Halladay. "Every once in a while it's a nice feeling."

Notes: The Blue Jays aren't likely to make a move to clear roster space for starter A.J. Burnett before the weekend. He was expected to displace either Josh Towers or rookie Jesse Litsch but the team might keep both up, send Towers to the bullpen and demote a reliever instead. "We could always do that," Gibbons said vaguely. .. Stairs batted leadoff for the second time this season in place of LF Reed Johnson, who got the day off. .. The last player in the majors to double in five straight at-bats was Colorado catcher Charles Johnson in 2004. .. Yankees CF Melky Cabrera extended his hit streak to a career-high 14 games. .. The Blue Jays last hit nine doubles Sept. 19, 1993 at Minnesota.