Escobar pitches Blue Jays to 7-3 victory over Indians

His four-hit effort came right after his worst outing of the season.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Kelvim Escobar made quite a comeback, and so did the Toronto Blue Jays.
Escobar (10-8) bounced back from his worst outing of the season to pitch four-hit ball over eight innings and Toronto overcame a three-run deficit to defeat the Cleveland Indians 7-3 Friday night.
Mike Bordick and Josh Phelps each hit a two-run homer and Carlos Delgado had a season-high four hits for the Blue Jays, who won for the second time in six games.
"I knew I had to come back strong," said Escobar, who was roughed up for nine earned runs and 10 hits over 51/3 innings in a 17-2 loss to Oakland on Sunday.
"I think my changeup was key tonight. They're a young team and I know young players can hit the fastball. I had to mix it up a little."
Escobar walked two and struck out four to improve to 7-1 on the road. Jason Kershner worked a perfect ninth.
Bard homers for Tribe
Josh Bard's three-run homer in the second inning accounted for the Indians' runs.
"Then I got mad," Escobar said. "I made a bad pitch and I knew I had to find a way to stop it right there."
Escobar retired the next 14 in a row.
C.C. Sabathia (12-8) lost for the first time in four starts. The left-hander gave up six runs and 10 hits over six innings and didn't get any groundball outs.
"Everything was up and over the middle," said Sabathia, who walked two and struck out six.
The Blue Jays threatened early before pounding Sabathia in a five-run fifth.
Reed Johnson singled and scored when Bordick hit the first pitch he saw into the left-field stands for a two-run homer, his fourth.
"Bordick set me up," Sabathia said. "He took the first pitch the first two times up. With runners on base, I wanted to get ahead in the count and he jumped all over it."
Vernon Wells then singled to right-center and scored on a double down the right-field line by Delgado to tie it at 3. It was Delgado's AL-leading 120th RBI.
Go-ahead homer
One out later, Phelps lined a fastball for a two-run homer to left, his 14th, for a 5-3 advantage.
"I like fastballs," Phelps said. "But I don't like it when that big guy is throwing hard and painting the outside corner with his changeup. I knew I couldn't hit that anyway, so I looked for the fastball."
Johnson added a sacrifice fly in the sixth and rookie Kevin Cash had an RBI double off reliever Jack Cressend to make it 7-3 in the eighth.
Sabathia did work out of three jams.
He yielded a double to Johnson and walked Bordick to start the game, then made quick work of Wells, Delgado and Bobby Kielty -- who came in with a combined 75 homers and 270 RBIs. The left-hander struck out Wells, got Delgado to fly out to left, and finished it by retiring Kielty on an infield pop.
"That's one tough lineup," Sabathia said. "In that inning, I was getting the ball inside. I tried to do that later and left them out over the plate instead."
Bard put the Indians ahead 3-0 with a three-run homer in the second -- a 429-foot shot to right for his fifth of the season and second in two nights.
"It was a 3-2 fastball, the only mistake he made," Bard said. "He didn't want to walk me."