Joe Girardi

Yankees manager Joe Girardi argues with home plate umpire Bill Welke after being thrown out of the game in the seventh inning against the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium on May 3, 2017. (Rich Schultz | Getty Images)

NEW YORK -- Yankees reliever Dellin Betances was the winning pitcher in Wednesday night's 8-6 comeback victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.

Manager Joe Girardi deserved it just as much.

Maybe more.

His seventh-inning ejection changed everything.

It fired up his club and sure seemed to intimidate plate umpire Bill Welke into making his strike zone much more Yankees friendly.

Here's what happened:

Toronto was up 6-5 from the third inning until the seventh when the Yankees scored three runs to turn the game immediately after Girardi was thrown out for arguing a called strike one to leadoff hitter Starlin Castro that clearly was inside.

Four hits brought in the first two runs, then the Yankees added an insurance run when Brett Gardner got a couple favorable ball calls in walking to load the bases and Aaron Hicks had a strike called a ball in walking to force in a run.

Girardi already had been working up an anger from the inning before when a few questionable called strikes included Gardner being rung up for the third out of the home sixth on a pitch that was off the plate.

"It started in the sixth inning with Gardy," Girardi said. "There were four pitches that I felt weren't strikes and it's an important time. We're down a run. There were a couple strike ones and a couple strike threes. When you're at the top of your order, it's kind of frustrating."

After Girardi was tossed, Blue Jays reliever Joe Biagini struck out Castro for the first out of the Yankees seventh, but Aaron Judge started a rally by following with a single to left for his career-high third hit.

From there, Chase Headley doubled to right to put runners on second and third, then Chris Carter singled to left to tie the game and Didi Gregorius put the Yanks ahead with an infield single.

After Joe Smith replaced Biagini on the mound for Toronto, Kyle Higashioka struck out for the second out before walks to Hicks and Gardner forced in the Yankees' eighth run.

Asked if felt better about Welke's strike zone after the ejection, Girardi said, "I was more pleased with it."

Of course.

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The Yankees won to improve to 17-9, and they're back in first place in the AL East alone with Baltimore losing in Boston to fall a game back.

The win also gave the Yankees a 4-2 homestand heading into a day off that will lead into two road interleague series, three in Chicago this weekend against the Cubs and then two next week in Cincinnati.

The Yankees' latest win came on a night in which they trailed 4-0 after a half inning and 6-3 after 1 1/2 innings.

"We kept chipping away," Girardi said. "Just a really impressive night by our hitters and our bullpen."

Girardi's timing for getting tossed, as well as his anger influencing Welke, was really impressive, too.

Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.