Here is a solution of just applying a regex to your String: I assume that you want the "20" as the day? Or what is $yday?

my $date = 'Wednesday, May 20, 2009 2:09 PM';
my ($yday) = $date =~ /(\d+)/;
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The "20" are the first digits in this string, so I just captured the first 1+ digits in the regex.