Nova earns 11th straight win, 3-2

Take it from Ivan Nova, who can make the comparison. It is a heck of a lot better to be rolling toward history than it is be lumbering toward Triple-A.

Nova is doing the former after having done the latter, making it safe to assume the Yankees never will send him back to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre -- and that the Yankees have a really good chance whenever he starts.

With a 3-2 win over the Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium Friday night, he has won 11 consecutive decisions, which is getting into historic territory.

Nova did have big help from leftfielder Brett Gardner, who made two dazzling catches that limited first-inning damage and thus made a de facto save eight innings before Mariano Rivera registered No. 37. Gardner also hit a two-run home run, Andruw Jones made a good catch at the rightfield wall, Robinson Cano had the tiebreaking hit (a fifth-inning single) and the Yankees moved back into first place and went 30 games over .500 for the first time this year.

That is all noteworthy. Still, it was mostly a Nova show. He is one shy of the Yankees' rookie starter standard of 12 consecutive wins, set by Atley Donald in 1939. Only two other rookie major-leaguers have won 11 in a row since World War II. No other Yankees rookie starter had won 14 games since Doc Medich in 1973, and now Nova has won 15 (against four losses). He has won eight consecutive starts, the most by a rookie since Marius Russo in 1939, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Possibly most intriguing, he is 16-0 in 25 career starts while pitching with a lead.

"What I'm trying to do is what everybody's trying to do," he said after allowing three hits, two walks and two runs in seven innings. "You've got to keep pitching deep into the game. When you've got a chance to win, you've just got to protect the lead."

Joe Girardi said, "When you talk about all the great ones, when they get the lead, they shut the other team down. He's very young and he still has things to learn as a pitcher, but he is making great strides. He learned a lot last year, he learned a lot the first month this year. I think he has taken that and used it, used it to learn how to relax in situations."

Nova did not get flustered when he fell behind 1-0 on a walk and two hard singles before he recorded his first out. It helped that Gardner made two good plays on a couple of rockets after that -- one became a sacrifice fly and then Edwin Encarnacion's potential double became an inning-ending double play.

"Gardy really saved the game in the first inning," said Girardi, who had seen a 4-0 deficit flash before his eyes. A 2-0 hole didn't look so bad.

Nova was quite pleased with Gardner's catches and the one Jones made on Jose Bautista's long fly in the fourth. "I thought it was a homer," said the pitcher, who, according to STATS, joined Tom Browning of the 1985 Reds and Gary Peters of the 1963 White Sox as the only rookies since 1946 to win 11 straight.

Gardner lined a two-run homer in the third against Brandon Morrow (9-10), tying the score at 2, and Cano put Nova ahead in the fifth with a two-out single to center for his 99th RBI.

What Nova has done since his questionable demotion -- he had won four straight when he was sent down July 2 -- is make it impossible for the Yankees to send him down again. "You can put it that way," he said. "I've got tremendous stuff. I've just got to put everything right and continue to work.

"I don't want to go down, I don't want to get out of the rotation. The best way to stay in the rotation and not get sent down is pitch the best you can."