(Sports Network) - Right-hander Roy Halladay will try to reach 20 wins for the second time in his big-league career tonight when the Toronto Blue Jays host the New York Yankees in the finale of their three-game series at Rogers Centre.

Halladay, a first-round draft pick - 17th overall - by the Blue Jays in 1995, earned a career-best 22 wins in 36 starts and 266 innings in 2003 en route to the AL Cy Young Award.

He's won 12, 16 and 16 games in each of the last three seasons and has had great success against the Yankees, beating them four times this season and going 14-5 lifetime against them with three complete games and two shutouts in 31 appearances - 29 starts.

He defeated them twice in August alone while allowing 13 hits and five runs in 14 innings.

In his last 10 starts, Halladay is 7-3 and has pitched at least seven full innings six times.

For the Yankees, injury-riddled right-hander Carl Pavano makes the seventh start of his latest comeback.

The 32-year-old Connecticut native - a 13th-round draft pick of the Boston Red Sox in 1994 - made 17 starts with New York in 2005 before missing all of 2006 and appearing in just two games last season.

He made his 2008 debut on August 23 in Baltimore, winning a 5-3 verdict after allowing seven hits and three runs in five innings.

Start No. 2 came against Toronto and resulted in a 2-1 win after he tossed six innings of three-hit, one-run ball at Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees are 5-1 in the games Pavano has started.

Lifetime against the Blue Jays, he is 2-2 in six starts with a 4.65 earned run average in 31 innings.

On Wednesday, Bobby Abreu hit a grand slam in the 10th inning to push the Yankees to their seventh straight win, 6-2.

Xavier Nady drove in the other two runs for New York, which has only one loss over its last 11 games but was eliminated from postseason contention Tuesday. Juan Miranda went 2-for-4, recording the first two hits of his career.

New York was without captain Derek Jeter on Wednesday. The All-Star shortstop was not in the lineup after getting hit on his left hand over the weekend by a pitch. Cody Ransom got the start at shortstop instead.

Phil Hughes, who made seven starts in April before spending the next four months either injured or in the minors and didn't return until September 17, started and was tagged for just two runs on five hits in eight innings with six strikeouts. Jose Veras (5-2) got the win with a scoreless ninth.

Scott Rolen had a solo homer for the Blue Jays, who have dropped three straight. Alex Rios also had an RBI in defeat.

A.J. Burnett also lasted eight innings and yielded two runs -- one earned -- on seven hits with 11 strikeouts and just two walks. Jesse Carlson (7-2) took the loss after giving up four runs on three hits in two innings.

New York has won nine of its 17 matchups with the Jays this season.