Chicago, IL (Sports Network) - Nick Swisher looked patiently at two bad pitches from a fresh arm.
He knocked the third one into the seats.
Swisher hit a three-run homer in the eighth inning Sunday night, snapping a tie and leading the Yankees to a 10-4 victory over the Cubs in the rubber match of an interleague series at Wrigley Field.
After Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano singled off Sean Marshall (3-2), Swisher looked at two high-and-outside pitches from Chris Carpenter before drilling a fastball over the plate past the wall in right field.
It made a winner out of CC Sabathia and moved the Yankees to 8-2 in their last 10 games. They won the last two games of the series, improving to 8-2 in their last 10 on the road.
Sabathia (9-4) was pulled for a pinch-hitter in the eighth. He gave up four runs on eight hits and a walk, striking out three in seven good-enough innings to improve to 18-7 in 39 career interleague starts, all against NL teams.
"It's not really hard when you got the offense that we have and you can really believe that if you can stop it right here, we got a good chance of winning," said Sabathia. "Some other teams that you play on, it's tough. But with this offense that we have and the guys we have in the lineup, if you can stop the bleeding, you got a really good chance of winning the game."
Brett Gardner led the game off with a home run and Rodriguez had three hits, three runs scored and an RBI for New York.
Alfonso Soriano hit a three-run homer for the Cubs, who fell to 6-14 in their last 20 games. Starter Randy Wells gave up five hits, four walks and struck out three in six innings, leaving with the game tied at 4-4 in a no-decision.
"It was a fun series to be a part of," said Wells. "We played so well, it's a shame tonight ended like it did, because I thought we played some great baseball."
Gardner fell behind 0-2 in his leadoff at-bat, but smacked a homer to right field to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead. The Cubs tied the game in the bottom of the first when Reed Johnson led off with a double, went to third on Starlin Castro's fly ball and scored on Jeff Baker's ground out.
Castro and Aramis Ramirez singled in front of Soriano's homer in the third inning, which gave Chicago a 4-1 lead. Soriano's two-out blast -- a moon shot that landed in the left field seats -- was his 14th of the season.
The Yankees scratched out two runs in the fourth inning on Swisher's RBI single and Eduardo Nunez's bases-loaded grounder, which scored Cano from third.
They added a run and tied the game at 4-4 in the sixth after Rodriguez led off with a single, went to second on a ground out, moved to third on Swisher's single and scored on Russell Martin's sacrifice fly to right field.
After Swisher's homer made it 7-4, David Robertson walked two Cubs with one out in the bottom of the eighth. Soriano and Geovany Soto moved up on Carlos Pena's ground out, but Robertson got pinch-hitter Blake DeWitt on a pop-up to Rodriguez at third to end the inning.
Gardner led off the ninth with a double and scored on Curtis Granderson's triple. James Russell was replaced by Rodrigo Lopez, who gave up back-to-back doubles to Mark Teixeira and Rodriguez for two more runs.
Chicago put its first two runners on in the bottom of the ninth and loaded the bases with two outs against Jeff Marquez, but couldn't score.